Anti-Talks ULFA Faction Likely to Participate in Peace Discussions With Centre, Say Report
The Wire Staff
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New Delhi: The central government is in the process of bringing to the negotiating table the anti-talks faction of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) or ULFA-Independent, news magazine Outlook has reported.
While the pro-talks faction headed by ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa has been engaged in negotiations with the Centre since 2009 for a peace accord, the Paresh Barua faction of ULFA has always refused to join it – demanding that the government include in the agenda the ‘sovereignty’ issue of Assam too.
The armed separatist group was formed in the north-eastern border state on the premise that Assam had only ceded to British India due to the Yandaboo Treaty, signed in 1826 between two foreign powers – the British and the Burmese occupiers. While some say the outfit was formed in 1979, alongside the anti-foreigner agitation, some others, including senior security officials posted in the state, date it to early 1980s.
In 2009, the Bangladesh government handed over to Indian security forces the Rajkhowa faction of ULFA, leading to a start in the peace talks.
The Outlook report published on January 28 quoted “multiple sources”, including “sources in the home ministry,” to state that the peace accord would be signed with the Baruah faction of the ULFA too in April this year and it would be the Narendra Modi government’s “Bihu gift” to the people of Assam. Bihu is the state's biggest festival. The report said the government is trying to expedite peace talks with ULFA “especially to pacify large sections of people who have been protesting for over a month against the Citizenship Amendment Act.”
Significantly, the man mobilised to facilitate the involvement of ULFA-Independent is Rebati Phukan, who “disappeared” from a Guwahati street while on morning walk on April 22, 2018. Phukan, who was earlier a member of the People’s Consultative Group – formed in 2005 at the behest of the then Manmohan Singh government with Assamese writer and Jnanpith awardee Mamomi Raisom Goswami – “was apparently drafted by Indian Intelligence agencies to break the ice with Baruah”. The talks led by the 10-member Group failed in 2006 as Baruah insisted on discussing ‘Assam’s sovereignty’ issue too.
Also read: Still No Trace of Rebati Phukan, the Missing Former Peace Negotiator for ULFA
A former footballer and a businessman, Phukan is a childhood friend of Baruah, belongs to the same village in upper Assam, and is considered close to him. Phukan’s sudden disappearance led to finger pointing at the Rajkhowa faction, which denied any role in it. Though his family filed a petition in the Supreme Court requesting information on his whereabouts, it later withdrew it. The January 28 news report is the first that states that he is alive.
Reacting to the news report, Baruah, who is believed to be camping somewhere near the border between Myanmar and China, told a Guwahati-based news channel on January 28 that the ‘sovereignty’ issue would have to be on the negotiating table for his faction to join the peace talks. “They just give a one-line statement, [and expect us to] send a team to the negotiating table. This is the problem between the government of India and us,” he reportedly said.
On January 28, state finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told local media in Guwahati that Union home minister Amit Shah had clearly stated a day before (on the occasion of the signing of the Bodo Accord in New Delhi) that “the Centre is more than willing to hold dialogues with them (ULFA-Independent) for the sake of permanent peace in Assam and the North East.”
The Myanmarese army has been on an offensive against the north-eastern rebel groups camping in its border along India, including the ULFA-Independent.
Though talks with the Rajkhowa faction of the ULFA gained pace initially, they slowed down over the years with at least three changes in appointments by the government to the interlocutor assigned for it. The present interlocutor is former special secretary of RAW, A.B. Mathur.
This article went live on January twenty-ninth, two thousand twenty, at forty-five minutes past one in the afternoon.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.