A Violent 'Ceasefire'
Guest Writer: Amantha Perera
Editor - News Features, The Sunday Leader, Colombo
The searchlight has once again fallen on Trincomalee, the
deep-sea harbour in north-eastern Sri Lanka, where the Navy's
northern headquarters is located along with an oil tank
complex run by Indian Oil Corporation.
The Sri Lankan Government, on August 9, 2004, officially
complained to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) that
13 camps of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),
located along the southern mouth of the harbour, had been
newly setup, violating the bilateral ceasefire agreement
between Colombo and the Tigers.
On August
12, the SLMM commenced investigating the veracity of the
charges by sending in teams to assess the location of the
camps. The Sri Lankan security forces say that, from the
camps, the LTTE could severely disrupt the functioning of
the harbour, which is the main supply point to the northern
Jaffna Peninsula. Recent media reports filed from the Government-controlled
side of the harbour have said that the Tigers have fortified
the camps and have erected bunker lines along the coast.
The harbour and its environs can be easily monitored from
the camps and the Tigers have used artillery from the area
in the past. A bay located at Illankantai on the south-eastern
side of the bay allows the Tigers to dock boats deep inland
and unload.
The monitors themselves admit that it would be no easy task
to rule on the Government complaint. "It would be difficult,
but not impossible," according to the deputy head of the
SLMM, Hagrup Hakland. Some of the camps mentioned in the
Government complaint are located in deep jungles off the
Trincomalee Bay and would require some effort to reach.
The SLMM had notified the LTTE of its plan to check on the
camps and did not expect any protest from the Tigers.
On August 16, however S. P. Tamilchelvan, the political-wing
head of the LTTE, publicly denied the charge that the Tigers
were arming and fortifying the area in question.
This is not the first time that Trincomalee, and especially
the southern Bay area, has come under the spotlight due
to the Tigers setting up new camps since the ceasefire agreement
was signed in February 2002. In June 2003, the Sri Lankan
Army lodged a complaint with the SLMM accusing the Tigers
of setting up a new camp at Manirasakulam on the south western
side of the Bay. The SLMM inquiry ruled that the camp was
within 600 meters of Government-controlled areas and should
be dismantled. The Tigers have preferred to ignore the ruling
and the camp still stands.
Manirasakulam was one of the points of contention between
then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and President Chandrika
Kumaratunga. Last August, Kumaratunga wrote to Wickremesinghe
requesting him to take action to dismantle the camp. "You
will understand that the non-withdrawal of this camp creates
the most abominable precedent," she said in her letter.
Kumaratunga later took over the defence portfolio and thereafter
dissolved the Wickremesinghe controlled Parliament. In elections
held this April, her party was returned to power.
One of the difficulties the SLMM would face in its inquiry
is the lack of clarity in terms of lines of control between
Government forces and the Tigers in the disputed area, unlike
in the North, where clear frontlines were established following
military operations.
The area was under Government troops till about 1997. According
to sources from within the Sri Lankan Army, troops had to
be pulled out and the camps abandoned in 1997, when the
Army launched Operation Jayasikuru (Victory Assured)
to capture the main A9 highway that connects the Jaffna
Peninsula to the rest of the country. The sources put Sampur,
Gangai, Kadalkadu, Koonativu and Illankantai among the camps
that were abandoned. Sampur, Kadalkadu and Illankantai are
now among the disputed camps. It was with the Army pull-out
that the LTTE moved into the area and set up bases. The
camps have been fortified during the ceasefire, as is the
case all over the northeast. The last Army camp on the southern
bay side is located at Kattaparichchan where an LTTE camp
is situated as well.
While the government has zeroed in on Trincomalee, the adjoining
Batticaloa District in the south has been the most violent
since the former LTTE eastern 'Commander', Vinayagamoorthy
Muralitharan alias 'Colonel' Karuna, defected to Government-controlled
areas in early April following an internal rebellion.
The LTTE central command in Kilinochchi sent armed units
into the Karuna-controlled East on April 9 and overwhelmed
the rebels. Nevertheless, Karuna supporters were initially
able to carry out hit and run attacks against cadres sent
from Kilinochchi.
On July 5, the LTTE 'political head' in Batticaloa, Ramalingam
Padmaseelan alias 'Lt. Col.' Senathiraja, was shot while
travelling to participate in commemoration ceremonies honouring
LTTE suicide cadres. He succumbed to his injuries on July
13. The LTTE thereafter launched a clinical operation decimating
whatever support Karuna enjoyed in the East. They pulled
back their political operatives and closed the political
office in Government-controlled Batticaloa after the murder,
but, according to monitors and security force sources, unleashed
their military cadres.
On July 14, the day of Senathiraja's funeral, the LTTE said
that it had killed a Karuna cadre and captured two others
following a skirmish at a location called Punai south of
the Polonnaruwa - Batticaloa main road.
The most daring attack came on the morning of July 15, when
LTTE cadre Mahendran Pulidaran shot Kanapathipillai Mahendran
alias Satchi Master inside the Batticaloa Jail. Earlier
the LTTE had accused Satchi Master of working as the spokesperson
for the Karuna faction from inside the Jail with the help
of Army intelligence.
Killings of Karuna supporters and members of the Eelam People's
Democratic Party (EPDP), a party that has supported the
renegades, have continued into August. In the week of August
9-15, on two consecutive days, August 12 and 13, three bodies
with gunshot wounds were recovered from Kiran, north of
Batticaloa, Karuna's hometown.
The victims appeared to have been beaten before being shot.
The bodies were manacled and bound with chains.
The bloody campaign has been the result of the determination
on the part of the LTTE to wrest control of the East. "It
is clear that the LTTE is trying to consolidate itself,"
Susanne Ringgaard Pederesen, SLMM head for Batticaloa, told
the writer recently.
There have also been complaints against the LTTE that it
was recruiting children and young adults in the East, to
replenish the loss of cadres following the Karuna rebellion.
From a strength of around 7,000 cadres, the LTTE is believed
to have lost around 2000 through the mutiny, though estimates
vary. UNICEF and UNHCR have raised the issue of child recruits
with the LTTE. The LTTE's new political command in Batticaloa,
under Kaushalayn, appears frustrated at its inability to
rein in the military cadres operating directly under Kilinochchi.
On August 5, the LTTE released 24 children to their parents
following pressure by the aid agencies.
The attacks against Karuna have spread to the capital, Colombo,
as well. On July 25, seven Karuna supporters were gunned
down inside a house at a Colombo suburb. EPDP leader Douglas
Devananda survived an assassination attempt by a suicide
cadre earlier in the month.
When he visited Sri Lanka in June, Norwegian Deputy Foreign
Minister, Vidar Helgessen, raised the issue of the killings
with the LTTE. Before he left after failing to achieve a
breakthrough in the deadlocked negotiations, Helgessen warned
that the truce was being seriously undermined by the violence
and the inability on the part of the Kumaratunga Government
and the LTTE to reach a compromise.
On August 16, Kumaratunga, while warning that she would
not shy away from military action, said during an interview
that she felt that the Tigers were more concerned about
regaining control of the East. While Kumaratunga spoke,
the ceasefire once again came under serious pressure on
August 16, when Sri Lankan Naval crafts approached an LTTE
trawler suspected of gun running off the north-eastern waters.
The LTTE prevented monitors from inspecting the cargo unloaded
from the trawler and the trawler itself. At one point a
Tiger dinghy suspected to be manned by a suicide cadre sped
towards a Naval vessel closing in on the trawler. The Navy
vessel had later withdrawn. The Government once again complained
to the monitors regarding their inability to inspect the
vessel or the cargo.
With both sides willing to adopt a hard-line stance, the
ceasefire is likely to be tested even more in the coming
weeks. On August 20, the former LTTE political head for
Batticaloa, Vasu Bawa, was killed along with two other cadres
during an ambush.
As Pedersen expressed it, "It is only the tip of the iceberg
that we are seeing, it is the sad reality".
Democracy in Terror
Anand Kumar
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
On August 21, 2004, the main opposition party, the Awami
League (AL), leader and former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina
narrowly escaped an attempt on her life. The incident, ironically,
took place immediately after she wrapped up a rally of around
25,000 supporters protesting the recent Sylhet blasts, with
a call "to end the rule of the Government that inspires
bomb attacks." 18 Awami League supporters were killed in
the attack, and over 200, including several senior party
leaders, were injured when the grenades started raining
down from the top of a building facing the AL headquarters.
Among the senior leaders seriously injured were Abdur Razzak,
Amir Hossain Amu, Suranjit Sengupta, Ivy Rahman and Kazi
Zafarullah. One of Sheikh Hasina's personal security staff,
Mahbub Alam, who was standing close by her, was also killed
in the incident. The "unidentified assailants" fired seven
bullets at the bulletproof sports utility vehicle (SUV)
that Hasina boarded immediately after the blasts.
This is
only the latest in a continuous succession of violent incidents
that has occurred since the four-party right wing ruling
alliance came to power in October 2001. The targets of most
of these attacks have been progressive intellectuals, journalists
and senior opposition leaders. Against a backdrop of rising
Islamist fundamentalist and extremist activity in the country,
and increasing evidence of a rising trade in small arms,
the ruling coalition has been consistent in its inaction,
its efforts to shield the guilty, and to block access to
information regarding all such cases.
There is a pattern in the violence that suggests that the
Islamists, some of whom are part of the ruling coalition,
are now systematically exploiting the bitter rivalry between
the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the main
opposition party, the AL, to further their hidden agenda.
The Government headed by BNP leader Khalida Zia has, however,
lost no time after many such incidents in laying the blame
at the AL's door. In every such incident the Government
has sought to project a 'conspiracy angle' involving the
AL, while right wing and radical Islamists perpetrators
are shielded.
Though the groups responsible for the latest attack on Sheikh
Hasina are yet to be identified, it is useful to review
some of the incidents of violence targeting political leaders
and intellectuals in year 2004:
-
April
2: Sheikh Hasina came under attack by BNP activists
in Barisal. At least 11 leaders and workers of AL units
were injured by the attackers, who also assault some
journalists.
-
March
15: Industrial units owned by Abdul Mannan, who had
resigned from the BNP and joined the 'alternative political
stream' proposed by former President Badruddoza Chowdhury
were attacked by suspected activists of the ruling BNP.
-
March
11: Badruddoza Chowdhury, along with some other like
minded leaders tried to launch his 'third political
stream' in a rally at Dhaka, where alleged BNP activists
aided by the police attack him and his supporters. Several
hundred people were reportedly injured in the incident
and the rally was disrupted.
-
February
27: Suspected Islamist extremists stab prominent writer
Humayun Azad in front of the Bangla Academy in capital
Dhaka. Azad, a Professor of Bangla at the Dhaka University,
was allegedly threatened by the extremists for the launch
of his latest work 'Pak Sar Zamin Saad Baad' in November
2003.
-
February
26: BNP activists attack Sheikh Hasina's motorcade at
Charkawa ferry ghat in Barisal town while she was proceeding
to address a rally.
-
February
23: Assailants, allegedly belonging to the pro-government
Parbatya Samo Adhikar Andolan, attack the vehicle of
Gano Forum President Kamal Hossain in Kaukhali sub-district.
Over the
past week, Islamists have also been involved in a programme
of mass mobilization across the country. One prong of attack
has been an intensification of the campaign against the
Ahmadiyyas. On August 13, police in Khulna thwarted attempts
by a large group of Islamist extremists to destroy the Nirala
Ahmadiyya mosque complex. The Islamists were reportedly
supporters of the International Khatme Nabuwat Movement
Bangladesh (IKNMB). Moulana Azizul Huq, chairman of the
ruling alliance partner, the Islami Oikyo Jote (IOJ), issued
an ultimatum that further delay in declaring Ahmadiyyas
as non-Muslims would invite the fall of the coalition Government.
Addressing a rally of over 30,000 people, he said, "The
faithful Muslims will crush all Ahmadiyya complexes in the
country if adherents of Ahmadiyya Jamaat are not officially
declared non-Muslims." The local chapter of IKNMB also organized
rallies at KDA Avenue and Babri Square after the Friday
prayers.
A procession was also organized by Amra Dhakabasi, which
later clashed with the police and attacked an Ahmadiyya
Complex at Bakshibazar on August 20, demanding declaration
of the sect as non-Muslim, in the run-up to their planned
siege to the complex on August 27. Before staging the procession,
the extremists staged a rally near the Shahi Mosjid in Chawkbazar,
where the speakers warned the Government that it would have
to shoulder the responsibility for any untoward incident
that may take place on August 27.
Islamist extremists have also carried out a sustained campaign
of intimidation against the Press, and the latest link in
a chain of incidents has been the demonstrations against
the Bengali Daily Newspaper, Prothom Alo. Two Islamist
organisations, including the IOJ, a member of the ruling
coalition, staged rallies near the Chittagong office of
the Newspaper on August 18 in protest against what they
said were "defamatory reports against Qaumi Madrasas"
(unregistered Islamic seminaries). Demanding the arrest
of the Daily's editor and other reporters, students of the
Koumi Madrasa and the activists of IOJ asked for withdrawal
of the series of reports under the headline 'Militant Activities
in Greater Chittagong.' The demonstrators threatened the
Daily with a ban on its sale in the southeastern port city
if its authorities did not apologise for carrying the reports.
The next day, thousands of teachers and students of Qaumi
Madrasas demanded cancellation of the declaration (registration)
of the Daily Prothom Alo from a rally in Dhaka. The
protestors accused the newspaper of indulging in a hate
campaign against unregistered religious schools and threatened
to burn down the Newspaper's headquarters. Addressing a
rally of Befakul Madaresil Arabia (the Kowmi Madrasa Board)
in front of the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, IOJ Chairman
Fazlul Haq Amini said, "No conspiracy against Kowmi Madrasas
and Islam will be tolerated." He also termed the editor
and the publisher of Prothom Alo as the "agents of
the American and Jewish axis" and called upon "the Muslims
of Chittagong" to cripple life in the port city with protests.
On August 20, the Islami Shashantantra Andolan (Islamic
Constitutional Movement) in Dhaka also joined in the protests
and threatened to launch an agitation if an apology was
not tendered for the reports.
It is within this context that the opposition political
parties, led by the Awami League, had resolved, on August
17, to launch an immediate and unified movement against
the Islamist militant forces whom they held responsible
for the repeated bomb attacks in the country. This decision
was taken by the frontline leaders of the opposition parties
at a round table meeting organized by the Hasanul Haq Inu
faction of he Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD-Inu) at its office
in Dhaka. They also called for a greater unity of the pro-liberation
forces to fight back against the recent upsurge of Islamist
extremists and terrorists. The Awami League General Secretary
Abdul Jalil claimed, "In the ruling coalition, the BNP is
no more the dominant factor now, but Jamaat-e-Islami is."
JSD President Inu said communalism, fatwas and militant
activities were pushing the country towards a bloody civil
war. Its General Secretary Syed Jafar Sazzad presented the
keynote paper to the roundtable, in which he questioned
whether the failure to bring the extremists to account was
really a failure of enforcement agencies and the administration,
or whether the Government was deliberately obstructing proper
investigation by them. The keynote paper claimed that the
Jamaat, by its very nature, is an armed force and had been
running militant operations in Chittagong, Cox's Bazar,
Satkhira, Rajshahi and other parts of the country. The JEI's
student wing, the Islami Chattra Shibir, had seized control
of many educational institutions including the Chittagong
University, Rajshahi University and Islamic University through
killings and other criminal activities.
There is now increasing evidence that the Islamists are
ruling Bangladesh by proxy, and have secured sufficient
clout to call the shots in Government, though the BNP remains
nominally in charge. This became obvious on January 9 this
year, when the Bangladesh Government was forced to ban Ahmadiyya
publications. The Government justified this step, stating
that it was 'necessary to avoid violence and bloodshed'.
But the progressive community within Bangladesh strongly
believes that this step has only encouraged the extremist
factions. The Islamists now openly declare that these issues
will figure prominently in the next elections and any party
that does not accept the Islamist agenda cannot hope to
secure power in Bangladesh.
Meghalaya: A Mushrooming
of Insurgent Groups
Guest Writer: Anirban Roy
Principal Correspondent, Hindustan Times, Shillong
Friday the 13th, August, 2004, was not an inauspicious day
for the Meghalaya Police, who astonished the tribal people
of the north-eastern State of Meghalaya by crushing the
Retrieval Indigenous Unified Front (RIUF), a nascent insurgent
group.
Fresh from a Ceasefire Agreement with the A'chik National
Volunteers Council (ANVC)
and after drubbing the banned Hynniewtrep National Liberation
Council (HNLC)
for the last two years in the eastern part of Meghalaya,
the State Police, on August 13, carried out operations in
three different places in the capital city and arrested
seven out of the twelve top leaders of the RIUF, which had
come into being just six weeks earlier. Euphoric with the
achievement, State Home Minister H.D. Lyngdoh was all praise
for the "alertness and activeness" of the police personnel.
The arrested
militants included the self-styled 'commander-in-chief',
Anmol Mushahary, 'general secretary', Fernai Langswer, 'finance
secretary' Dedication Mylliemgap and 'publicity secretary'
(Ms) Rapwanka Nongrum. The lone woman in the top leadership
of the RIUF is the wife of a prominent youth political leader.
Three country-made revolvers, one SBBL gun, ammunition,
and some incriminating documents were also seized from the
aspiring tribal revolutionaries.
Before the August 13 arrests, very few people in Meghalaya
had heard about the RIUF. On August 11 and 12, the organisation
had given a call for a 12-hour bandh (shut down)
for Independence Day (August 15) through the local vernacular
and English newspapers. A.S. Rynjah, the Superintendent
of Police (SP) of the East Khasi Hills District said that
"fairly-educated" youth, in the 19-22 years age-group had
floated the RIUF with the sole objective of earning some
easy money. Authenticating his claim, Rynjah said, the RIUF,
within weeks of its birth, found a base at Lamapunji in
Bangladesh, very close to the Indo-Bangla border and started
issuing extortion demands to different business establishments
in the capital city.
Most of the businessmen who were slapped with the extortion
notices, were not only perplexed with the nomenclature and
identity of the RIUF, but also doubted the organisation's
'revolutionary' credentials. Some suspected it to be an
off-shoot of the banned HNLC, which is fighting for 'Bri
Hynniewtrep' (a sovereign homeland for the tribal Khasis.
The HNLC has almost been wiped out as a result of a series
of coordinated operations by the Meghalaya Police, and the
backbone of its 'Army' and 'Finance Wing' has been crushed.
While a number of senior cadres have either been killed
or arrested, more than 80 HNLC members have laid down arms
during the last eight months. The last group of 28 HNLC
cadres led by self-styled 'Sergeant' Starding Risaw and
'Political Officer' Yoki Shullai laid down arms before the
Chief Minister D.D. Lapang at the State Secretariat on August
3.
Pushed to the wall, it was expected that the HNLC would
try its best to branch out for survival. This idea gained
currency since the incriminating documents seized from RIUF
hideouts included an HNLC publicity booklet. However, the
ethnic composition of the RIUF confused police officials
and analysts. Most of the smaller insurgent groups in the
Northeast, including the HNLC, which claim to fight for
their 'ethnic identity', have been homogenous in composition.
Surprisingly, the infant RIUF had a mix of Khasi and Bodo
youth. While there has been some initial suspicion that
the banned National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB)
may have played a role in the setting up of the RIUF, the
State Police are trying to verify possible associations
between the RIUF and the HNLC. Since the December 2003 military
operations in Bhutan against insurgent groups from India's
Northeast in that country, the NDFB has been substantially
marginalised, at least in Assam.
The RIUF was the eleventh insurgent group to emerge in the
15-year history of insurgency in the State, which has a
population of just 2.3 million. It was in September 1989
that Vincent A. Sangma entered the pages of the State's
history as the architect of insurgency with the formation
of the Hynniewtrep A'chik Liberation Council (HALC). Soon
after, however, the group split into the A'chik Liberation
Magrik Army (ALMA) and the Hynniewtrep National Liberation
Council (HNLC).
But the RIUF is only one among the insurgent groups currently
mushrooming in Meghalaya. The Hynniewtrep National Special
Red Army (HNSRA), which announced its existence last month
by warning the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL)
not to start commercial mining at Domiasiat in the West
Khasi Hills District, is another worry for the State Government.
Emulating the HNLC ideology, the HNSRA also called for a
12-hour bandh on Independence Day. The tribal Khasis also
appear to share the Government's apprehensions on the unexpected
proclamation of this new outfit. Till 2001 another Khasi
organisation, the North East Red Army (NERA) operated in
the Khasi Hills districts, but vanished after the reported
killing of its supremo, Chin Thangkhiew, and there is some
speculation that the HNSRA may be a reincarnation of this
defunct group, though the Police currently discount this
theory.
Neither is the Jaintia Hills District free from the menace
of armed youth. The existence of the Pnar Liberation Army
(PnLA) was confirmed with the killing of two of its cadres
in a village near Umrangshu in May this year. While some
say that the PnLA has started extortion in the coal-belt
areas of Khliehriat and Lad-Rymbai, the State Police have
little detail on the new group's activities in the eastern
part of Meghalaya.
Three Garo Hills Districts of Meghalaya have long been a
hot-spot of insurgency. ALMA, which operated in this area,
laid down arms on October 25, 1994. However, as the rehabilitation
of the surrendered cadres turned out to be a failure, the
leaders of the new Garo insurgent group, the ANVC, managed
to lure many of its former cadres back into the jungles.
Taking advantage of the thick jungles and difficult terrain,
the ANVC cadres, fighting for a "Greater Garoland (a separate
State within the framework of the Indian Constitution),
managed to expand their striking capabilities and the organisation
was banned under the Unlawful
Activities (Prevention) Act on November
16, 2000.
While the ANVC was consolidating its hold, another group,
the People's Liberation Front of Meghalaya (PLFM)
was also operating in the territory of the three Garo hills
Districts under the leadership of Vincent A. Sangma, the
'Godfather' of insurgency in the State. The ANVC and the
PLFM, however, are engaged in a turf war over the issue
of the over-lapping of areas of operations, and in 2002,
it was reported that Vincent A. Sangma had been eliminated
by ANVC cadres in Bangladesh. The PLFM's activities in the
Garo Hills, and even in Bangladesh, were almost wiped out
with the reported killing of its leader. Subsequently, when
the ANVC started its negotiations with New Delhi for a 'peaceful
settlement' of its 'grievances', there was a sudden upsurge
of violence, as a new insurgent group, the United A'chik
National Front (UANF) began operations in the Garo Hills
area. There are reports that suggest that UANF is the new
avatar of the defunct PLFM. However, enforcement
and intelligence agencies are still in the process of collecting
information on the new group's leadership, modus-operandi
and operational capacities.
Like the PLFM, the growth of the Hajong United Liberation
Army (HULA) has also troubled the ANVC leadership. HULA,
which was raised through the active support of the NDFB,
is fighting for the 'rights' of the tribal Hajongs in the
Western areas of the Garo Hills. The 'minority' Hajongs
have been demanding separate rights and protection since
the birth of the State of Meghalaya in 1972.
Among the States of the Northeast, Meghalaya has remained
relatively less afflicted by the contagion of insurgency.
The recent mushrooming of rag-tag insurgent groups, however,
is becoming a cause for rising concern among security agencies
and analysts in the State.
