SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 3, No. 6, August 23, 2004

 

SRI LANKA

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.

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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".

 

BANGLADESH

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.

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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.

 

INDIA

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.

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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.