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Myanmar too joins hands against rebels
With Myanmar deciding to emulate Bhutan in the next couple of weeks, the Indian Army is geared up to go all out to annihilate the fleeing militants, who were yet to commit themselves to a peace process. This was confirmed by the Indian Army sources at Tezpur, where last night saw a flurry of activities, including a crucial strategic meeting, chaired by Defence Minister George Fernandes and attended by the GOC-in-C of 4 Corps Lieut-Gen Mohinder Singh, besides Assam DGP P.V. Sumant. As the Bhutan operation entered the 10th day today, the Indian Army is all set to expand their role from sealing the Indo-Bhutan border to concentrate on the Indo-Bangladesh boundary, where the fleeing militants were likely to move. Meanwhile, reports from New Delhi quoting the Myanmarese Foreign Minister U Win Aung said Myanmar had also decided to join hands to flush out the anti-Indian rebels. A number of militant camps are inside that country. The Army source, refusing to elaborate on last night’s meeting at the 4 Corps, only said if the fleeing militants did not surrender, each of them would be pursued and annihilated by the force. In a well-laid out strategy piloted by New Delhi, general amnesty was announced through the Assam Government yesterday for the fleeing militants, who surrendered before January 31. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said the Assam Government would welcome the militants and help them rehabilitate if they gave up arms and joined the mainstream. Meanwhile, the Royal Bhutan Army resumed its mopping up operation of the militant camps in the kingdom since yesterday as sounds of sharp firing could be heard from the bordering town. More than 50 ULFA and NDFB militants were today captured in the mopping up operations against them in Bhutan even as the Royal Bhutan Army disclosed that the offensive may last for five more days. More than 50 militants had been captured in the operations which was continuing in the South and Eastern Bhutan jungles, RBA sources said. Asked as to how long the operation would continue, the source said, it may go on for the next four or five days but at present no exact time frame had been fixed. GUWAHATI: The Royal Bhutan Army operations against North-East insurgents were heading towards its goal of total flushing out the militants there, Bhutan deputy head of mission in India Thinley Penjor said on Wednesday. The areas where the camps were located had been cordoned off and search was on for the rebels, who fled after all their 30 camps were destroyed dislodging them, he said. The army offensives were spread from east to west of the southern part of the Kingdom as the guerrilla camps were located all along the area, Mr Penjor said. Close on the heels of the Assam Chief Minister announcing conditional general amnesty to north-east ultras now holed up in Bhutan, Governor Lieut-Gen Ajai Singh (retd) said today “major militant leaders” had established contact with security forces for the purpose of surrendering. Meanwhile, Defence Minister George Fernandes assessed the success of the Indian Army deployed along the Indo-Bhutan border in sealing the frontiers against sneaking North-East insurgents. Army sources said Mr Fernandes last night reviewed the situation. He was also briefed about the counter-insurgency operations by the operational head of the Unified Command Structure, 4 Corps G-o-C Lieut-Gen Mohinder Singh. Today he left for the forward areas along the border with China in Arunachal Pradesh accompanied by senior Army officials, sources added. —
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PM to take up ULFA issue with Khaleda New Delhi, December 24 This sensational disclosure to the government may not have come as a shock but it has definitely injected a sense of urgency among the foreign policy makers as well as security managers here, authoritative sources told The Tribune today. The sources said Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be taking up the issue with his Bangladeshi counterpart Begum Khaleda Zia during a bilateral meeting on the margins of the SAARC summit in Islamabad (January 4-6). The sources said a day after the military operation started, ULFA commanders in Bhutan spoke on phone to ULFA supremo Paresh Barua and his key lieutenant Raju Barua, both of whom are in Bangladesh. The Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) has so far smashed 30-odd camps of the three north-eastern insurgent outfits — ULFA, National Democratic Front for Bodoland (NDFB) and Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO)— on Bhutanese soil. However, the military
operation by the RBA is still continuing as India believes that the insurgents may be having some more camps in Bhutan. Latest information received by the Government of India from Bhutan is that while ULFA and NDFB have lost some 100 cadres each, there are still some 400 to 500 insurgents, mostly of ULFA, in Bhutan. These fleeing cadres have taken refuge in dense jungles in Bhutan. The latest information with the government here from Bhutan is that while the morale of ULFA and the NDFB has been dented, the KLO cadres prefer to surrender rather than fight the RBA. The Government of India’s assessment is that the unprecedented anti-insurgency military operation in Bhutan by the RBA would have two-fold impact: (i) ULFA’s very existence is threatened and it would have to go to the negotiating table with the Government of India particularly after the government of Myanmar has gone on record saying that it would not allow any anti-Indian insurgent groups to remain on its soil. (ii) The insurgents’ threat to the lower Assam area would be substantially reduced which would give time for the Bodo Territorial Council to establish themselves and focus on delivering the aspirations of the Bodo people. |
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Bhutan hands over members of rebel Guwahati, December 24 “We completed the process of handing over some women and children to the Indian Army on Wednesday afternoon,” Bhutanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Singay Dorji said by telephone from Thimphu. “We cannot say as to how many of them were handed over at this point of time,” Dorji said. An Indian Army spokesman said details were awaited from the border. “We’re yet to get any details about the women and children being handed over to us,” spokesman Jaideep Ghosh said by telephone from the headquarters of the Army’s 4 Corps at Tezpur, 175 km north of Guwahati. Bhutanese military commanders handed over the first batch of women and children to their Indian counterparts at the border district of Samdrup Jhongkar, spokesman Dorji said. Indian intelligence officials said several dozen women and children belonging to families of Indian separatists had been captured by Bhutanese troops since the Buddhist kingdom launched a military offensive to expel the rebels on December 15. Bhutan yesterday confirmed reports that wives and children of militants were being lodged in safe houses inside the kingdom without specifying their numbers. Indian militants had accused Bhutan of raping and torturing the captured women and children while in their custody. Bhutan denied the charges. The Indian authorities earlier said the fate of the women and children would be decided after a thorough screening. —
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Premagatyse (Bhutan), December 24