A tripartite peace agreement was signed on December 29, 2023, between the ULFA (Pro-talk), the Union government and the state government of Assam, which is another significant milestone achieved by the Modi government. The delegation of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) consisted of 16 members, led by Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, the outfit’s foreign secretary Sasadhar Choudhury, finance secretary Chitrabon Hazarika, cultural secretary Pranati Deka, deputy commander-in-chief Raju Barua, and the outfit’s general secretary Anup Chetia.
Chetia has been camping in New Delhi since December 25 and held talks with the peace interlocutor, AK Mishra, on December 26. The peace agreement signed with the terrorist outfit aims to address issues involving illegal immigration, land rights for indigenous communities, a special financial package for Assam’s development, a status report on missing ULFA leaders and cadres, granting of general amnesty, reintegration and rehabilitation of ULFA members and affected people, settlement of all royalties on mines and minerals — including oil — on a retrospective compensatory basis, and reinforcement of the indigenous rights of independent use for sustainable economic development in the future. Thus most of the demands are in the nature of constitutional and political arrangements and reforms.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah in a press conference, after the signing of the peace pact, stated that the Centre will ensure all the reasonable demands by ULFA are met in a time-bound manner, and ULFA as an organisation will be disbanded. He stated, “We want to assure the ULFA leadership that their trust in the Centre to ensure the success of the peace process will be honoured.” Shah said that the removal of the Armed Forces (Special) Powers Act (AFSPA) from many areas of Assam and other Northeast states is proof that insurgency is nearly dead in the region. AFSPA, 1958 had been applicable in most of the Northeast. Reduction in areas under AFSPA is a result of the improved security and law and order situation and fast-tracked development due to consistent efforts and several agreements to end insurgency and bring lasting peace, by the Modi Government, the latest and the most significant being the one with the ULFA.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had earlier called the peace process and lifting of AFSPA entirely to be a “conviction of the BJP rather than an electoral manifesto.” Evidently, the Central government is keen to see governance in the Northeast handled proactively and a process of peace and development rolled out effectively. And of the three focused areas of the government’s policy for the Northeast, ending disputes and promoting peace in the region is a significant one.
After almost four decades of ULFA’s existence and two decades of terrorism and violence against the state, where more than 12000 people died, bringing the insurgent group to a peace agreement is a historical moment for Assam. Terrorism is a major national security concern and a threat to a nation’s sovereignty and jeopardises the affected country’s economic growth, societal peace, and harmony. India is a victim of terrorism, predominantly sponsored by foreign actors. PM Narendra Modi’s government has skilfully dealt with such actors with a policy of blood and iron and by extending adequate peace talks and fast-tracking the peace process.
Background of the formation of ULFA
In the quest for an elusive ‘sovereign Assam’, a group of young lads in 1979 set up an organisation and named it the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). The founding members were Bhimkanta Buragohain, Pradip Gogoi, Suren Dihingia, and Rajib Rajkonnwar, who later came to be known as Arabinda Rajkhowa. The organisation later was joined by Paresh Barua, who founded its armed wing and became its self-styled commander-in-chief. The initial years after the formation of the ULFA were relatively peaceful. But from the middle of the 1980s, the insurgent group became increasingly aggressive in its pursuit, deviated from the constitutional ways, resorted to terrorist activities and was subsequently banned in 1990. So, now, except for a defiant Paresh Barua, all of the founding members have signed the peace pact, in the quest for an honourable settlement within the purview of the Indian Constitution.
The Split
On February 5, 2011, ULFA leaders led by vice-chairman Pradip Gogoi, along with foreign secretary Sashadhar Choudhury and central publicity secretary Mithinga Daimary announced that the outfit’s general council had endorsed the resolution of the Central Executive Council (CEC) to sit for talks with the Central government without any precondition. ULFA commander-in-chief Paresh Barua-led group described the general council itself as unconstitutional, thus negating the resolution. The ‘formal’ split however took place in August 2012 when Paresh Barua expelled Arabinda Rajkhowa and appointed Abhijit Barman as the outfit’s chairman.
Reign of terror unleashed by ULFA extended more than a decade
The worst that the ULFA did started from the late 1980s to the 1990s when it unleashed a reign of terror. Thousands of indiscriminate killings of civilians draw the trajectory of ULFA’s modus operandi during this period. It led to a massive alienation of the outfit from the mainstream Assamese masses and their consciousness. And a growing fear, terror and hatred in the mind of a common Assamese. The ULFA turned into a dreaded terrorist outfit after its ban in 1990. The ULFA, which started as an organisation in 1979 committed to ending the ‘mainstream Indian dominance in Assam’ drawing its cadres across the cross-section of the mainstream Assamese society, grooved only into mass killings, terrorist activities, extortion, targeting north Indian migrant labourers and abduction of officials.
One such abduction and subsequent murder was the case of Sergei Gretchenko, a Russian coal engineer who came to work in the coal mines of Margherita, Tinsukia district. Wanton violence and terrorism gripped the state. Among hundreds of thousands of killings done through premeditated terror attacks, one of the most historically spiteful has been the killing of 18 children aged between 12-14, on the day of Independence, 2004, gathered to celebrate the auspicious national day of pride. The Assamese society can never conscientiously forget the killings of these children.
Foreign Links and International Organised Crime
Most of the camps of the ULFA were in Sandrup Jongkhar district in southern Bhutan which borders Assam’s Nalbari district. The Royal Bhutan Army is reported to have destroyed all the outfit’s camps and observation posts during the military operations launched in December 2003. Following this, the Central Council Headquarters (CCH) of the ULFA was shifted to the Bakapura area of Sherpur district in the Mymensingh division of northern Bangladesh and subsequently, was shifted to Myanmar.
The ULFA first established initial contacts and agreements with the undivided National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) in the mid-1980s and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) of Myanmar for training of personnel in armed combat and supply of arms. ULFA also established links with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Afghan Mujahideen. Intelligence reports indicate that at least 200 ULFA cadres were trained in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and also by the Defence Forces Intelligence (DFI) of Bangladesh. And around 300 ULFA cadres were trained in Rawalpindi in counterintelligence, disinformation and the use of sophisticated weapons and explosives. Similar reports indicate that both the ISI and the DFI facilitated the ULFA’s camps, logistics and operations.
Many such details were divulged when Bangladeshi authorities arrested Anup Chetia on December 21, 1997. The ISI reportedly provided several passports to Paresh Barua and different cadres of ULFA. Barua had been regularly visiting Karachi since 1992-93 and was also reported to have met the slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 1996 during a visit to Karachi. Barua was reportedly taken to a camp on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and received assurance of military, logistical assistance in the supply of arms and ammunitions from the Al-Qaeda along with its organisational affiliates like the International Jehad Council, the Tehrik-ul-Jehad, Harkat-ul-Jehadi-e-Islami (HuJI). ISI with its fake passports facilitated the movement of Paresh Barua and other ULFA leaders to Singapore, Thailand and other countries.
But there is another facet of this terrorist outfit. Interestingly, in Bangladesh, the ULFA sustainably carried out different business pursuits, including media consultancy firms and cold drink manufacturing units, hotels, private clinics, motor driving schools etc in Dhaka. Barua was personally reported to be almost a business tycoon having controlling interests in various businesses, including a tannery, chains of departmental stores, garment factories, travel agencies, shrimp trawlers and transport and investment companies.
Bangladesh: A safe haven for the terrorists
ULFA is carrying out its operations from 13-14 camps in Bangladesh active since 1989. Bangladesh not only acted as a safe hideout for ULFA and an operational control and training location, but subsequently started receiving shipments of armaments in transit before they finally entered Indian territory. The Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) and the Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA) were the chief suppliers of arms for the ULFA through Bangladesh.
For arms supply, it started using the West Garo Hills to coordinate the transit of arms coming through Bangladesh. ISI-controlled madrassas and mosques in Sylhet and Cox Bazaar areas were being used to hoard and transfer arms procured by the ULFA from Thailand and Myanmar, also as transfer channels of funds. ISI also facilitated the ULFA to procure arms like AK-56 rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled guns and anti-tank rifles from Cambodia, paying for these in hard currency routed through Nepal. The LTTE transporters helped the ULFA to transport arms from Southeast Asia into Myanmar.
Different terrorist organisations of the Northeast and foreign outfits cooperated to form the Indo-Burmese Revolutionary Front (IBRF) in 1989. The IBRF consisted of Indian terrorist outfits like the NSCN-K, ULFA, United Liberation Front of Bodoland, Kuki National Front (KNF) and Chin National Front (Myanmar). The Communist Party of Burma is known to have supplied free-of-cost weapons, mainly Chinese-made M10 rifles, to ULFA and Naga terrorist organisations.
Arrested ULFA cadres, who acted as his close aides, have claimed that Barua is the kingpin of smuggling heroin, procured from Myanmar, into Assam as part of a “personal operation” and also has a share in the profitable narcotics business in Myanmar and Thailand. Similar sources have confirmed the ULFA terrorists had also crossed over into China via Bhutan and established contact with the Chinese Army.
The peace accord on December 29 with ULFA marks the end of an era of insurgencies and shows the Modi government’s firm commitment to bringing peace to the Northeast, consolidating the development process, intensifying national integration by ending insurgency in the region and breaking the nexus of financing, inter-state coordination, and foreign links of terror outfits, thus manifesting the concept of Amrit Kaal to its fullest.
The author is a senior faculty in the Department of History, ARSD College, University of Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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