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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 1, No. 48, June 16, 2003
Data and
assessments from SAIR can be freely published in any form
with credit to the South Asia Intelligence Review of the
South Asia Terrorism Portal
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The Post-Tokyo Agenda
Guest Writer: Jehan Perera
Media Director, National Peace Council of Sri Lanka
The pledging
of USD 4.5 billion over the next four years to Sri Lanka
at the Tokyo donor conference on June 9-10 came as an unexpected
surprise. The absence of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE)
from what had been billed as a joint Government-LTTE appeal
to the international community had led to reasonable apprehensions
that donor interest in the event would diminish. But the
total pledged was 50 percent larger than the USD 3 billion
that was anticipated as the target figure.
More striking, the quantum of aid pledged was the equivalent
of the funds pledged for the post-war reconstruction of
Afghanistan. The international support to Sri Lanka was
also manifested by the presence in Tokyo of representatives
of 51 countries and 22 international organisations, with
the Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi, and US Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage in attendance.
Ironically, after the Tokyo donor conference the main challenge
for the Government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
will not be so much to spend the foreign assistance expeditiously,
but to woo the LTTE back into the peace process. Most donors
who pledged aid, and notably Japan which pledged USD one
billion, said that the disbursement of their funds would
be conditional on the satisfactory progress of the peace
process. But the peace process remains stalled with the
LTTE refusing to meet in face-to-face talks with the Government
until it is provided with a satisfactory interim administration
to govern the north east of the country.
In the week prior to the Tokyo donor conference, and in
its last ditch effort to get the LTTE on board for the donor's
meet, the Government came up with a design for an interim
apex authority. This was a mechanism based on existing law
and administrative practices that could cut through layers
of bureaucracy and address the LTTE's complaint that the
Government machinery in the north east was not delivering
economic results to the people. But by emphasizing only
the economic aspects of the LTTE's call for a new and innovative
structure, the Government failed to satisfy the political
aspiration and self-image of the LTTE as the sole representative
of the Tamil people.
It is interesting to note that, in his opening address to
the donor conference, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
utilised the LTTE's own terminology of "a new and innovative
structure" to describe the Government's proposed new administrative
structure for reconstruction and development in the north
east. But his presentation of a more detailed version of
this structure did not reveal anything new or innovative
that could meet with the LTTE's stated objective of a political-administrative
framework.
The new "provisional administrative structure", according
to the Prime Minister, would have included "rebuilding the
war damaged economy, reconstruction, resettlement and providing
effective delivery of essential services so as to uplift
the lives of the people." It would also have been "based
on four principles specified; namely to be efficient, transparent
and accountable; safeguard the interests of all communities
in the north east; enable the LTTE to play a significant
role, and not be in conflict with the laws of Sri Lanka."
In its first response to the Tokyo conference, the LTTE
rejected the Government's proposal made in Tokyo as unacceptable
and insufficiently specific. The LTTE also appeared to be
unfazed by the magnitude of the international community's
generosity to Sri Lanka. Instead, it reiterated its justification
for not attending the Tokyo conference, stating, "While
our leadership has proposed an interim administrative framework,
a politico-administrative structure for the Northeast with
wider participation of the LTTE, the Sri Lankan Government
has offered a council with a structure and mechanism for
the development of the region."
The LTTE also rejected the final declaration of the conference,
noting that it was not a party to the deliberations in Tokyo.
It said, "The Colombo Government, with the active assistance
of the facilitator and its international 'tactical' allies
has formulated this strategic paper to superimpose its own
agenda on the LTTE. This is unacceptable to us." The LTTE's
suspicion that it is being cornered by the Sri Lankan Government,
in concert with the international community, is reflected
in its assertion that there is a bid to pressurize it into
agreeing to unacceptable terms and conditions.
The LTTE appears to be prepared to sit out of the USD 4.5
billion development process indefinitely, just as it was
prepared to sit out of the Tokyo donor conference despite
all the local and international efforts to persuade it to
go to Tokyo. And if history is any guide, the LTTE has reason
to be confident that little that is positive can happen
in the northeast over its objections. The fact is that all
previous efforts by Sri Lankan Governments to solve the
ethnic conflict while marginalizing the LTTE failed disastrously.
In responding to the LTTE, and persuading it to re-engage
in the peace process, the Sri Lankan Government needs to
recognise more explicitly that the ethnic conflict did not
arise simply due to economic or bureaucratic infirmities,
but due to the deliberate political marginalisation of the
Tamil people. The interim authority proposed by the Government
in its effort to convince the LTTE to attend the Tokyo conference
failed to give adequate consideration to the LTTE's political
aspirations. What the LTTE really seems to want is a provisional
Government for the northeast that would wield political
authority, and not simply be an efficient administrative
structure to ensure rapid economic reconstruction.
At this time the Sri Lankan Government is reportedly making
yet another effort to bring the LTTE back into the peace
process. While its two efforts just prior to the Tokyo conference
were rejected by the LTTE as inadequate, the latest offer
is reportedly based on the model of an Interim Administration
that was proposed by the former People's Alliance Government
in August 2000 as a part of its abortive constitutional
bill. This proposed structure would include ministerial
positions and police powers in the northeast region in addition
to effective economic mechanisms.
However, the prospects for satisfactory progress on this
score appear to be remote unless there is a willingness
on the part of the LTTE to be more cooperative. The most
recent destruction of an LTTE ship on being apprehended
by the Sri Lankan navy in the northern seas is likely to
add to the difficulties of generating a breakthrough in
the peace process, as also would the assassination of a
top anti-LTTE Tamil leader, T. Subathiran of the Eelam People's
Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) allegedly by an LTTE
sniper in Jaffna on June 14. The fact that the LTTE is continuing
to smuggle weapons into the northeast even at this time
can only add to the difficulties of the Government in transferring
powers of governance over to them.
The second challenge for the Government after the Tokyo
conference would be to bring the opposition PA as a partner
into the peace process. The PA's contribution to bringing
the principle of devolution of powers on federal lines into
the mainstream of public debate during its period of governance
needs to be appreciated and utilised at this critical juncture.
Further, the PA's political support is necessary at the
present time for the establishment of an interim administration
that would wield sufficient powers to satisfy the LTTE.
Up to the present the PA has been pushed into an oppositional
position due to its exclusion from the peace process. Such
an environment in which the peace process is politicized
is not conducive to achieving its success. The best way
out of this impasse is for the Sri Lankan Government to
get President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the People's Alliance
aboard as active participants, and it is reported that the
LTTE has privately indicated its willingness to accept such
a role for the Opposition. The LTTE's open support for this
move could be a major contribution to the ultimate success
of the peace process.
J&K: Reassessing Operation Sarp
Vinash
Guest Writer: Praveen Swami
Special Correspondent, Frontline
Two weeks
ago, the Army's Operation
Sarp Vinash (Snake Destroyer) in the Hil
Kaka area of Surankote in the Poonch district had appeared
as a shining example of military 'innovation, intelligence
and enterprise', and newspapers and television channels
have since been saturated with reports of this 'high-profile'
counter terrorist operation. One newspaper, whose correspondent
had yet to visit the area, spoke of terrorists occupying
a 'Karnal-sized area' (Karnal is a mid-sized town in Harayana
with a population of over 1.3 million); others spoke of
a Kargil-style intrusions, concrete bunkers, training camps
and prepared killing fields. The Army's spin was that a
major terrorist threat, which could have crippled Indian
lines of communication in case of a war, had been interdicted.
Bar the usual muttering about intelligence failure, the
media has let it be known that a great victory has been
won in the face of overwhelming odds, and Union Defence
Minister George Fernandes has announced that he will ensure
more Sarp Vinash style operations take place in the
near future.
Now here's the unhappy truth: the media version of Operation
Sarp Vinash is a hoax unprecedented in the annals
of the Indian Army.
It is difficult to ascertain just what the Army's authorised
version of Operation Sarp Vinash actually is, because
officials have put out irreconcilable figures and accounts,
much of these from behind a dense veil of anonymity. The
Times of India first reported on a major offensive
in the Surankote area. On May 17, its defence correspondent,
Rajat Pandit, wrote that the Army had killed "60 hard-core
militants in the Surankote area proximate to the Line of
Control in Jammu and Kashmir," and had "also seized a huge
quantity of assault rifles, mortars, grenades, rocket-propelled
grenades and under-barrel grenade launchers, among other
'war-like stores.'" The very next day, The Asian Age
said that the operation had involved the use of Russian-built
MI-17 helicopters, mainly to evacuate casualties. On May
19, The Tribune went one step further, asserting
that the Army had killed "180 Pakistani terrorists and foreign
mercenaries in the past 45 days when for the first time
it launched an operation to free the high mountainous positions
in Jammu and Kashmir which had so far been a haven for ultras."
All these early reports had two common features: they cited
no on-record sources, and the term Sarp Vinash was
nowhere used. It first appeared in the Jammu-based Excelsior
on May 21. The operation, the newspaper reported citing
anonymous defence sources, had been carried out "from April
21 to May 18 to clear a bulge at Hill [Hil] Kaka where hardcore
Pakistani groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad,
Lashkar,
Al
Badr and Hizbul
Mujahideen had set up fortifications in a large
area of strategic importance to interdict Indian Army supply
lines." In the meanwhile, reports of helicopter strikes
and terrorist-held fortifications had provoked hysteria
among New Delhi-based journalists. Finally, on May 20, Army
Chief, General N.C. Vij, tried to calm things down. The
next morning's Tribune quoted him as denying "that
helicopter gunships had been used to flush out the terrorists"
but accepting that "helicopters had been used for logistical
purposes", a routine event.
On May 23, the General Officer-Commanding of the Rajouri-based
Romeo Force, Major-General Hardev Lidder, spoke to journalists
flown in from New Delhi and Jammu. Lidder proceeded to rubbish
Vij's claims before the press, asserting that helicopters
"were used to destroy a bunker used by the ultras in the
Hill [Hil] Kaka area." The Excelsior reported him
as saying that the "hideouts busted were almost like military
fortifications, where militants had stored large cache of
arms, war like stores and 7,000 tonnes of rations." "The
fortifications", the newspaper reported, "were designed
on the pattern of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda hideouts in
mountains near Jalalabad and some of them located as high
as 3989 metres had to be targeted by helicopter fired air-to-ground
'frog' high fragmentation missiles." At the press conference,
Lidder said 65 terrorists had been killed in the operation,
ten across the Pir Panjal by troops of the Srinagar-based
15 Corps.
Two days later, Lidder provided more detail on the actual
operation. In January, he said, helipads, roads and mule
track were built to facilitate access to Hil Kaka. Army
helicopters, he said, provided the crucial breakthrough,
locating footprints in the snow leading to hideouts. Operations
in Hil Kaka began on April 21. The Indian Express
reported him as saying, "Our first contact with the terrorists
began in the morning of April 22 when our jawans,
using the shock-and-awe tactic, killed 13 terrorists around
Pt [Point] 3689 [metres]." India's former Military Attaché
in Washington also clearly understood the value of a little
rhetoric. He claimed troops had found Inmarsat sets from
where terrorists had called "Aligarh Muslim University,
Malappuram in Kerala, Chinapalli in Tamil Nadu, Ahmedabad
and even to Kuwait among other places."
Broadly, then, the Army made three major claims for Operation
Sarp Vinash. It had killed between 40 and 60 terrorists
in and around Hil Kaka, depending on who one believed. Many
more had perished elsewhere. It had found a large hoard
of war-like stores and weaponry. And, finally, it had destroyed
some 90 major fortified hideouts, using air power and massive
infantry resources.
Here's the truth about Sarp Vinash: it has actually
killed less terrorists in and around Hil Kaka during the
course of the much-hyped operation than in past years. It
found no war-like stores, fortifications, or training camps.
By the end of May last year, 36 terrorists had been eliminated
in the fighting around Hil Kaka. This year, by the Army's
own claims in various documents accessed during this writer's
investigations, the number is just 27. In 2001, 103 terrorists
were killed around Hil Kaka, a figure that fell to 47 in
2002 because counter-insurgency formations had been withdrawn
for India's war-that-wasn't with Pakistan. It is profoundly
unlikely that the killings figures in Sarp Vinash
will match those of 2001, despite all the bluff and bluster.
And that isn't all. In the summer of 2001 and 2002, when
terrorists were supposedly roaming around Poonch with impunity,
the Jammu and Kashmir Police's records show considerably
larger numbers of them were eliminated across the district
than this time around.
What then of Operation Sarp Vinash's supposed success?
The lie is nailed by the Army's own documents, filed in
the wake of the seven major encounters that took place on
Hil Kaka between April 22 and May 27. After each encounter,
the Army files documents with the local police, stating
how many terrorists it has killed and what weapons it has
recovered. The seven documents filed by the Army in the
course of the Hil Kaka operations collectively claim the
elimination of just 27 terrorists by four separate units
of the Indian Army.
Even this figure is open to dispute. Photographic evidence
of all 27 killed, a necessity for a police First Information
Report (FIR) to accept the claim made, is not available.
More important, the claims of terrorists killed and weapons
recovered are wildly inconsistent. The seven Army documents
declare the recovery of 4 Pika-type machine guns, 9 assault
rifles, a sniper rifle, and one 60-milimetre mortar. Even
assuming that those who manned the Pika guns did not also
have Kalashnikovs for their own proximate defence, an improbable
eventuality, that only adds up to 14 major weapons. Thirteen
terrorists, the documents would have us believe, were armed
only with five pistols and a twelve-bore hunting shotgun.
Troops of the 9 Para-Commando Regiment killed fourteen terrorists,
and identified five - Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)
district commander Jannat Gul, Abu Farz, Abu Usman, Abu
Bakr, and Abu Hamza. They also recovered only five automatic
weapons; the rest of those killed seem unarmed. In some
cases, the Army's claims border on the farcical. The 15
Garhwal Rifles' report of May 12, for example, insists that
the "weapon of the second militant washed away in the flow
of water in the Nallah [mountain stream] and could
not be recovered." How the unit's officers knew the missing
weapon washed away in the stream is not clear, since Kalashnikovs
are not known to bob up and down in running water.
Jammu and Kashmir Police Headquarters, based on the FIRs
filed in the Surankote police station, has therefore been
conservative in its assessment of the numbers of terrorists
killed in Sarp Vinash. At the end of the first week
of June, its figure for bodies actually found stood at 25.
How, then, did the Army top brass claim to have killed upwards
of 60 terrorists? With creative jugglery - and a little
bit of imagination. In Poonch, for example, the Army claimed
that five terrorists killed in the jurisdictions of the
Mandi and Mendhar police stations were trophies for Sarp
Vinash. A minute with the map shows this could not be
the case, since the escape routes from Hil Kala lie northeast
into the Pir Panjal, not back across the mountains towards
the Line of Control. The Army also added terrorists killed
in ambushes across the Pir Panjal towards Shopian to their
total. Official records show seven terrorists were killed
on the Chor Gali [pass] above Shopian on May 13, one each
on May 23 and May 27, and another group of eight near Zainpora
on June 7. Yet, even if one accepts the 27-dead figure claimed
by the Army in Hil Kaka, along with the five claimed killed
in Mendhar and Mandi, this still adds up to 46 - well below
the Army's claimed numbers. It should also be noted that
the Zainpora encounter took place several days after claims
made by Vij and Lidder - which would bring the total at
that time to 36.
Far larger killings of terrorists have taken place in individual
encounters in the past, unaided by the high-tech gadgetry
the Army claims was key to its current success. An operation
at Khari Dhok, part of the Hil Kaka bowl, claimed the lives
of 20 terrorists on July 15, 2001. Another 21 terrorists
were eliminated at Mukhri on November 1 that year. These
two encounters alone claimed the lives of more terrorists
than the entire tally of Sarp Vinash. Its just that
television wasn't around to manufacture a 'great triumph'
at that time.
Evidence from arrested members of the groups on Hil Kaka
also give a fair idea of just what was happening in the
mountains - and none of it bears out the Army's steroid-fuelled
stories. Mohammad Younis, from Harmain village in Shopian,
was arrested by the Army in the course of its operations
in Hil Kaka. According to the military account of his activities,
which has led to his incarceration, Younis was taken from
his village by a Lashkar-e-Taiba unit in November last year.
There were, he said, five major hideouts around Hil Kaka,
which housed some 75 Lashkar cadre. Forty of these, he said,
were armed terrorists, the rest mainly children press-ganged
from villages in Poonch and southern Kashmir. Most of the
children never saw a gun, and were used mainly to clean
dishes, haul firewood, and cook food. When fighting broke
out on Hil Kaka, the children were left to cope as best
they could.
Army records themselves demolish claims that war-like stores
and fortifications were found on Hil Kaka. Its recoveries
of anything resembling area weapons amounted to only a single
mortar, a weapon that has been recovered in the dozens from
across Jammu and Kashmir over the past several years. The
total food ration shown recovered is not 7000 tonnes, as
Lidder had publicly asserted, but a paltry 355 kilograms,
and just 30-odd cooking utensils, 27 boxes, and 57 mat-sheets
were shown as being found. Assuming that stores were maintained
at static levels each month, a reasonable supposition given
the weather, and that at least half a kilogram of grain
was needed to sustain one terrorist for a day, would be
that this store could cater for a high estimate of 22 terrorists.
Little evidence has emerged of major built-up fortifications
in the area. The first encounter, carried out on April 22,
found an eight-bed hospital facility built into a Gujjar
dhoke (the summer stone-and-wood shelters built by
the region's migrant shepherds). Many of the larger dhokes
have semi-underground facilities, to shelter cattle and
sheep in case the weather turns bad. It is safe to assume
that any built up fortification would be defended at the
very least by a machine gun, the numbers recovered probably
give an accurate idea of how many defended positions there
actually were.
In May last year, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee took
the unprecedented step of chairing a meeting of the Unified
Headquarters at Srinagar. Midway through the meeting, its
minutes record, Research and Analysis Wing Commissioner
C.K. Sinha pointed to the heavy presence of terrorists on
the Poonch heights, and said some areas were being described
as 'liberated zones.' 15 Corps Commander Lieutenant-General
V.G. Patankar responded angrily, arguing that the Army was
operating in these areas with considerable success. Describing
Sinha's allegations as a slur, he asserted there were no
'liberated zones' anywhere in Jammu and Kashmir.
Less than a year on, we have the Army - although not, to
his credit, Patankar - claiming that it had no information
about the terrorist build-up. In fact, information about
the activities of terrorists in and around Hil Kaka poured
into the headquarters of the Romeo Force in Rajouri, Lidder's
current office, on an almost daily basis, and the present
writer has obtained copies of twelve key warnings emanating
from the State police's intelligence operatives and from
the Intelligence Bureau's field station. As early as November
2000, for example, the Poonch Police issued warnings to
all organisations in the area that "militants have intensified
their activities in Chak Maloti and Sangla areas." It noted
that "huge quantities of arms/ammunition has been stored
at Machipar adjacent to the houses of [five local residents]."
Another report, originated in November 2002, recorded that
"militants are regularly dumping the ration [sic]
at Hil Kaka top." The next month, a fresh warning was issued
about the construction of "four underground concealed hide-out[s]."
Investigations disclose that many of these warnings were
coming from a shadowy covert operations unit called Special
Group 3, made up of Gujjar residents of the high mountains.
This blows apart claims that photo-reconnaissance by its
newly-acquired Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, backed by aviation
corps helicopters and equipment like thermal imagers were
the key to whatever success Operation Sarp Vinash
achieved. All seven of the Army's reports on the Hil Kaka
operation either credit Special Group 3, managed by the
Jammu and Kashmir Police, or its smaller sister organisation,
Special Group 2. The information was at first ignored, and
then taken seriously only after the organisation's leader
spoke to a welter of top political and military figures
in Rajouri, Jammu and New Delhi. Based on their inputs,
the 9 Para-Commando Regiment, a crack unit that earned a
formidable reputation for counter-terrorist operations during
its earlier tenure in Kupwara, made a first attempt on Hil
Kaka in early January. That effort, and another timed for
January 26, was beaten back by heavy snow.
Through the winter, Romeo Force worked on putting together
helipads that would be able to supply a permanent presence
of troops on Hil Kaka. This was a marked departure from
conventional practice, which held that committing troops
there would only encourage terrorists to move base, and
that swift, in-and-out operations were more productive.
No road, contrary to Army claims, was built. Work has only
now commenced on the construction of an 18-kilometre route
from Bufliaz to Hil Kaka. Lidder also ordered that 155 mm
artillery be moved into positions below Hil Kaka, along
with Cheetah helicopters fitted with under-slung machine
guns. In the first week of April, Gujjar families in Bufliaz
were told they would not be allowed up the mountain. Two
weeks later, Operation Sarp Vinash commenced with
artillery pounding the forests around the Hil Kaka bowl,
and helicopters attacking terrorist positions. It was a
fruitless move: the assault killed no one, and a substantial
proportion of terrorists on Hil Kala simply left for safer
pastures.
On April 22, the 9 Para-Commando and the 3 Special Group
made their way up Hil Kaka, and began the first assault
of the operation. One group used shoulder-fired rockets
to eliminate a stone post on Chham Dera, which had been
turned into a machine-gun bunker dominating the entire Hil
Kaka ridge. Simultaneously, the group interdicted the main
terrorist base at Ban Jabran, half-way down the ridge. The
terrorists had stashed their supplies a little lower, at
Banota. No subsequent operation had anywhere near similar
success, for most terrorists had simply fled. Notably, none
of the seven Army reports speaks of fragmentation missiles
being used to attack any of the positions. As operations
continued, however, helicopters were used to fly in supplies,
including a truck and a bulldozer to build a road between
the new Army positions in the Hil Kaka bowl.
As things now stand, the Army intends to physically occupy
Hil Kaka until the winter sets in. That will, of course,
ensure that no terrorists dominate the area again - but
will do nothing to plug other heights on the Pir Panjal.
As the Army has long known, there simply aren't enough troops
to be present everywhere all the time. If the Army moves
troops east to try Sarp Vinash-style operations in
Doda or Udhampur, it will have to thin out deployment somewhere
else. The troops on Hil Kaka will serve no useful offensive
purpose, because terrorists will simply stop using the area.
That is precisely why Lieutenant General J.B.S. Yadava,
who commanded the 16 Corps during its highly successful
Hil Kaka operations in 2001, never committed troops to a
permanent presence there. As things stand, Operation Sarp
Vinash has sucked in four entire divisions into operations
in the high mountains - and yet, killings of terrorists
in both Rajouri and Poonch are at lower levels than in 2001
and 2002.
It doesn't take genius to work out what has gone wrong.
In this case, large groups of terrorists have simply moved
down the mountains into the lower reaches of Thana Mandi,
and built up a significance presence in the Kandi area of
Rajouri. Killings of civilians, particularly Muslims suspected
to be against the Islamist terrorist agenda, have escalated.
On May 24, while the Generals were talking about Sarp
Vinash, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)
terrorists killed five members of a Gujjar family at Keri
Khwas in Rajouri. A week earlier, terrorists entered the
home of Mehboob Hussain, near Kot Dhara in Rajouri. Inside,
they beheaded all four women present, as well as two children,
aged four and two. Troops in the Kheri Khwas area had been
moved up into the mountains.
None of this should be a surprise: they are predictable
consequences of military tactics discredited over the years.
Helicopter-borne operations were attempted in Wadwan, another
supposedly-liberated area on the Doda-Anantnag border, during
the winter of 2000. The massive and expensive exercise,
unsupported by field intelligence, succeeded in finding
precisely one empty Kalashnikov magazine. By contrast, operations
by the Rashtriya Rifles and Jammu and Kashmir Police Special
Operations Group the next year, which relied on speed, surprise
and silence, killed record numbers of terrorists. In 1999,
the entire 8 Mountain Division was pumped into Kupwara's
Rajwar forests. Again lacking intelligence support and planning,
the grandiose operation, code-named Operation Kaziranga,
showed a grand total of one dead body recovered at the end
of its first week. Nor has setting up company-strength posts
in remote mountain areas been productive. In the summer
of 2000, pickets were put up in Wadwan, and on the Margan
pass into Kishtwar. The mainly defensive positions killed
not a single terrorist, and were burned down when troops
withdrew at the onset of winter - sending a clear message
to local residents about who was boss.
Operation Sarp Vinash was intended to kill the 'snakes'
that threaten India's integrity. So far, its principal victim
has been the truth.
Partners in Terror: NGOs in the
Northeast
Bibhu Prasad Routray
Acting Director, Institute for Conflict Management Database
& Documentation Centre, Guwahati
Reports
of the identification of 824 Non-Governmental Organisations
(NGOs) in India's Northeast (excluding Mizoram and Arunachal
Pradesh) for suspected links with the insurgent groups have
persistently hit the headlines in the regional media over
the past fortnight. As luck would have it, several incidents
in just the last few days also have demonstrated the truth
of these reports, and of what is generally well known, though
usually played down by various power centres in the region.
Whether the Union Government takes concrete steps to rein
in these organisations masquerading as service-providers
in different sectors by restricting the flow of funds to
them - a preponderance of such funding comes from the Government
and its various agencies - is still to be seen, and there
is some sign of backtracking by the Union Government. Nevertheless,
it is high time that the dynamics and functioning of these
organisations are brought into a sharp and critical focus.
Media reports suggest that the number of NGOs recently identified
as having links with insurgent groups in the region were:
Assam - 151, Meghalaya - 323, Manipur - 197; Nagaland -
82; Tripura - 69; and Sikkim - 2. The existence of this
nexus between purported organs of civil society, on the
one hand, and various insurgent groups, on the other, raises
crucial questions of security and governance:. Specifically,
- It highlights the complexities
of trying to understand (let alone solve) the problem
of the multiple insurgencies in the region.
- It provides some hope
that the Government is gradually coming to terms with
the ground realities that flushing the region with enormous
amount of money will only enforce the forces of terror.
The extent
of NGO activity in India's Northeast can be ascertained
from the example of Meghalaya, a State with an area of 22,429
square kilometres and a population of 2.3 million. A study
conducted by the Kolkata-based Society for Socio-Economic
Studies and Services (SSESS) found that there were 8,757
registered NGOs (in September 2001) in the State. This very
large number - an NGO for every 263 persons in the State
- would suggest a thriving civil society and vast developmental
efforts concentrated in the non-Governmental sector. The
reality on the ground, unfortunately, makes this number
laughable, and there is little evidence of non-Governmental
developmental activity, or of a substantive civil discourse
on the challenges confronting the State.
The problem goes well beyond the perversion of the NGO culture
in terms of organizational linkages with the forces of terror.
The near-complete renunciation of the basic objectives associated
with the NGO movement is compounded by the enormous amounts
of money that are flowing into and through these organizations
in the name of development. Comprehensive data on the total
flow of funds is not available, but an assessment of the
magnitude is possible even on the basis of the fragmentary
information that can be accessed. Thus, the Department of
Development of North Eastern Region (DONER) alone disbursed
Rs. 5.5 billion from the non-lapsable pool of central resources
in the financial year 2002-03. Even though no estimation
exists regarding non-Governmental funding, including flows
from foreign sources, an indication is provided by the SSESS
study. The NGOs in Meghalaya alone received an amount of
Rs. 1.3 billion from various funding agencies during the
financial year 1999-2000.
It is commonplace that, rampant extortion apart, leakages
from developmental funds find their way into the coffers
of various insurgent groups. Conversations with a number
of officials and junior level employees in Manipur, for
instance, reveal the nexus between politicians, bureaucrats
and the insurgents, which has resulted in the near-complete
abandonment of developmental activities and the diversion
of funds into various illegal sectors and private pockets.
A statement by the Minister in charge of the DONER, C.P.
Thakur, in Guwahati, put the leakage of developmental funds
to the insurgents alone at 10 per cent of the total allocations
to the region. Officials and sources within the region,
however, assert that this is, at best, a modest estimate.
Collusion between the NGOs and insurgents has long been
an open secret. Such links include NGOs acting as publicity
managers for specific underground groups, as fundraisers,
as overground facilitators of terrorist activities, as media
handlers, as intelligence sources, and as conduits to and
contacts with various political and administrative agencies.
More interesting is the uncritical support that such entirely
compromised entities have received from international 'human
rights watchdogs' such as Amnesty International. Nor, indeed,
has such support been entirely innocent. While documentation
is difficult, there is at least one case in which an international
'human rights' group - the London-based Liberation
- falsified its own documents to provide deliberate cover
and multiple identities to members of a terrorist group
against whom red corner notices for murder had been issued
by Interpol, to appear before the UN Sub-Commission on Human
Rights at Geneva. (See
Arundhati Ghose -- Terrorists, Human Rights & the United
Nations.)
A look as some of the 'leading human rights organisations'
in the region is illuminating. In Assam, the Manab Adhikar
Sangram Samiti (MASS) has a long history of collusion with
the terrorist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).
·
-
As recently as on June
8, 2003, a female ULFA cadre, Kalyani Neog, who functioned
as a librarian in the banned outfit's council headquarters
in Bhutan, was arrested along with two MASS activists
from the house of a MASS central committee member, Minati
Bora. Bora is currently absconding.
-
In
the last week of May 2003, Police recovered a large
collection of ULFA documents from the Ghoguwa hills
of Morigaon district, which incidentally included a
letter from MASS requesting ULFA to sponsor a trip for
MASS members to New Delhi.
-
The
confessional statement of a surrendered ULFA militant,
Kushal Mech, who gave himself up on May 27, 2003, elaborates
on MASS' role, disclosing that it not only acted as
ULFA's mouthpiece, but doubled up as its recruitment
agency. Mech stated that "he had joined ULFA in 2002
with the help of two MASS activists whom he identified
as Pratul Saikia and Amrendra Sharma." These two MASS
activists have already been arrested. Amnesty International
has 'condemned' these arrests.
-
In
a letter recovered after his death on May 26, 2000,
ULFA's Assistant Publicity Secretary, Swadhinata Phukan
wrote: "In certain places we are not able to distinguish
between a member of the ULFA and MASS." To underline
the camaraderie, MASS condemned the death of Phukan
by saying that "he was a member of the civil wing of
ULFA, and was thus a non-combatant. His death has highlighted
the systematic use of extra judicial executions as a
standard method of counter-insurgency practice by the
security forces."
-
In
August 1997, MASS Chairman, Ajit Bhuyan, along with
two other office bearers of the organisation, was arrested
under the National Security Act (NSA). They were charged
with maintaining links with the ULFA and publishing
statements issued by the underground group. Amnesty
International in its Annual Report India, 1998, once
again bemoaned these arrests, ignoring open source information,
such as the Guwahati-based The Sentinel's report on
September 5, 1997, of documentary evidence proving that
Bhuyan had advised ULFA to start a campaign against
social activist Sanjoy Ghose, who was later kidnapped
and murdered by the terrorist group.
The fraternity
of 'Human Rights organisations' extends over most of the
theatres of conflict in the region. The Naga People's Movement
for Human Rights (NPMHR) and the Naga Students' Fedration
(NSF) have been named by the Union Government for their
nexus with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim - Isak-Muivah
(NSCN-IM),
though this is no longer a proscribed organisation following
its five-year engagement with the Government. Groups like
the Committee on Human Rights (COHR) and Human Rights Alert
in Manipur are outfits in the forefront of a campaign for
'human rights' to protect 'the people' from abuses by security
force personnel, but who maintain a stoic silence when it
comes to speaking of mounting excesses by the insurgents.
In Tripura, where as many as 69 NGOs are said to have been
put on the black list, organisations such as the Agartala-based
Borok Human Rights Forum operate with a clear pro-insurgent
mandate.
The Amnesty International Report, 2003, on India makes a
sweeping claim that, in the year 2002, "human rights defenders
were frequently harassed by State and private actors, and
their activities labelled as 'anti-national." It is not
clear whether Amnesty has any credible procedure of assessing
the credentials of the various local 'human rights organisations'
who provide it with its inputs, but it is abundantly clear
that, if such procedures exist, there are far from transparent.
There is sufficient evidence that a substantial proportion
of Amnesty's inputs are generated from motivated reports
by fraudulent organisations that are linked to violent political
and extremist groups, or are front organisations of such
groups, and these inputs appear to be amalgamated into Amnesty's
reports without a visible credibility check. The result
is that it is the cause of terrorism and political extremism
that is actually promoted under a camouflage of genuine
concern for human rights, and organisations like Amnesty
provide terrorist fronts a much-needed international platform.
In a situation where NGOs constantly demand greater 'transparency'
and 'accountability' from the Government and its various
agencies, it would be useful to bring a measure of transparency
and accountability into the activities of the NGOs themselves.
Of course, the work environment for NGOs in the Northeast
remains far from healthy. Over the years, insurgent groups
have targeted legitimate NGO activists if they are seen
to affect the standing or legitimacy of the extremist cause.
In the most infamous case of the region, Sanjay Ghose, associated
with AVARD-NE, was abducted and killed by ULFA terrorists
in 1997. Following his disappearance, ULFA chief Paresh
Baruah issued a diktat from his hideout in Bangladesh, declaring
that, "no NGO can work in Assam without the permission of
ULFA." According to Intelligence Bureau sources, following
this directive, 25 NGOs actually applied for approval from
ULFA to either start or continue their activities in the
State.
Worse still, the response of the political classes has remained
ambivalent. For instance, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar,
who has been crying himself hoarse over the Centre's failure
to act against Bangladeshi authorities for providing shelter
to insurgent groups operating in the Northeast, continues
to express ignorance about the linkages between such groups
and various NGOs in his State, and has failed to act against
the latter. In other instances, sections of the political
leadership of various States actively collude with insurgent
groups, or with their NGO fronts. Under the circumstances,
in the absence of any statutory accountability or transparency
of operation, it remains improbable that the corrosive nexus
between NGOs and the extremists can be broken in the foreseeable
future.
|
Weekly Fatalities: Major conflicts
in South Asia
June 9-15, 2003
  |
Civilian
|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Terrorist
|
Total
|
BANGLADESH
|
3
|
0
|
1
|
4
|
INDIA
|
Assam
|
11
|
0
|
3
|
14
|
Jammu
&
Kashmir
|
14
|
4
|
43
|
61
|
Left-wing
Extremism
|
5
|
0
|
0
|
5
|
Manipur
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
2
|
Meghalaya
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Total (INDIA)
|
30
|
4
|
49
|
83
|
PAKISTAN
|
3
|
0
|
1
|
4
|
SRI LANKA
|
2
|
0
|
12
|
14
|
* Provisional
data compiled from English language media sources.
|
BANGLADESH
Islamist
extremists attempting to make 'dirty' bomb,
indicates report: According to a report
in Time, Islamist extremists in Bangladesh
may be attempting to make a radioactive
'dirty' (nuclear) bomb. The report said
that police had arrested four suspected
members of an Islamist group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen
(JuM),
on May 30, 2003, from a house in the northern
village of Puiya. It recovered from them
a football-size package, which was later
found to be uranium manufactured in Kazakhstan
besides 23 pages of documents describing
how to manufacture bombs. However, Government
officials are still not sure who was behind
the smuggling of uranium. The village of
Puiya is reportedly known for being sympathetic
to the Al
Qaeda and recently, 17 suspected
Islamist terrorists were arrested from there
for distributing posters and tapes featuring
Osama bin Laden. Time,
June 16, 2003.
INDIA
10 Lashkar-e-Toiba
terrorists killed in Poonch district, Jammu
and Kashmir: Security forces (SFs) killed
10 hardcore Pakistani terrorists of the
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
outfit during an encounter at Hari Safeda
in the Surankote area of Poonch district
on June 14, 2003. A police constable and
a civilian were also killed in the incident.
Official sources said that the encounter
ensued after SFs launched a search operation
in Hari Safeda forests after securing information
regarding movement of a large group of terrorists.
Eight AK rifles, one Pika gun, a large quantity
of AK and Pika ammunition, three wireless
sets, 22 hand grenades, one Under Barrel
Grenade Launcher (UBGL), eight UBGL grenades
and some eatables and ration items were
recovered from the encounter site. Daily
Exceslior, June 15, 2003.
Documents related to terrorism handed
over to US during Deputy Premier's Washington
visit: India has handed over to the
United States certain documents relating
to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism during the
talks between visiting Deputy Prime Minister
L K Advani and US Attorney General John
Ashcroft in Washington on June 10, 2003.
According to the Deputy Premier, "certain
papers that we had which we felt could be
shared with America, we handed over to Ashcroft."
Meanwhile, Pakistan-sponsored cross border
terrorism and India's recent peace initiative
came up for discussions during an unscheduled
meeting on the same day between Advani and
US President George W. Bush. Describing
Pakistan as the epicentre of international
terrorism, Advani said on June 12 that India
and the US should work together to defeat
the menace, which is a "threat not only
to the security of the two countries but
to peace and tranquility around the world."
"The epicentre of international terrorism
lies in India's immediate neighbourhood...
It gives me no joy in pointing fingers but
the involvement of Pakistan can no longer
be ignored," Advani said after giving an
address on 'Indo-US relations in a strategic
perspective' organised by the World Affairs
Council in Los Angeles. Times
of India, June 13, 2003;
Hindustan
Times, June 11, 2003.
SRI LANKA
12 'sea tigers'
feared killed as LTTE vessel is sunk off the Mullaitivu coast:
A suspected arms smuggling vessel of the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
was allegedly blown up by the Sri Lankan Navy (SLN) in international
waters, 266 nautical miles off the coast of Mullaitivu, on June
14. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) monitors have reportedly
said that 12 'sea tigers' are feared killed in the incident.
Meanwhile, a press release issued by the Political Head Quarters
of LTTE in Kilinochchi said that it had informed the SLMM of
the sinking of its 'merchant vessel'. The statement added that
the incident is "a gross violation of the ceasefire agreement
and if any harm were to befall the crew of the LTTE vessel then
the sole responsibility for the events lay with the SLN and
that this incident would have very grave consequences." Daily
News, June 15, 2003.
EPRLF leader Subathiran assassinated: Subathiran, a front
ranking leader of a faction of the Eelam People's Revolutionary
Liberation Front (EPRLF) opposed to the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE),
was assassinated in the heart of northern Jaffna town on June
14, 2003, by an unidentified sniper', allegedly an LTTE sharpshooter.
The LTTE has neither claimed nor denied involvement in the killing.
The
Hindu, June 15, 2003.
Premier offers LTTE more authority in rebuilding and administering
North East: While speaking at the donors conference on Reconstruction
and Development of Sri Lanka in Tokyo on June 9, 2003, Sri Lankan
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe reportedly offered to meet
the key demand of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
for an interim administration in the North-East Province. He
also said that his Government would consider calling a referendum
to endorse changes to the country's Constitution that could
be part of a final solution of the conflict. The donors have
reportedly pledged US dollars 4 billion aid over the next four
years to rebuild the country. Meanwhile, US Deputy Secretary
of State Richard Armitage, who attended the meeting, urged the
LTTE to return to the negotiating table. However, he also indicated
that it was not possible to remove the LTTE from the list of
banned terrorist outfits immediately. Daily
News, June 10, 2003.
|
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