TIBET – THE INTERNATIONAL MISTAKE OF THE CENTURY

Tibet – The Biggest International Mistake of the Previous Century

Executive Summary by Mrs. Claudia Johnston

The following is an Executive Summary of TIBET: The International Mistake of the Century. From Negligence to Resolve – Mechanisms for Effect”. This report has been prepared by Claudia Johnston, an independent researcher in International Law, now studying “Dispute Resolution” at the University of Victoria, Canada.

The report is the result of three years of research conducted at the United Nations Archives in New York, the United Nations Peace Palace Archives in Geneva, and the International Court of Justice Library at The Hague.

The report shows how the international community – in particular the United Nations, individual UN Member States, parliamentary bodies and diplomats – can help to solve the issue of Tibet.

Principal findings of this research can be summarised as follows:
“The International Mistake of the Century” explores the primary reasons why there has been no solution, nor significant move towards a solution, for the crisis in Tibet.

A primary reason is that the United Nations, and individual Member States, have been conducting their decisions based on the false assumption that Tibet is not a “State”, but “an internal affair” of China.

UN official records show this to be a mistake, because:
1. Information regarding the international character of the “Invasion of Foreign Forces Into Tibet” has yet to be appropriately considered for resolve.

At the time of the invasion of Tibet in 1949/1950 by Chinese forces, Tibet was an independent State. In October 1950 the Tibetan Government maintained its international character as a “State” by sending a plea to the Secretary General of the United Nations.

The plea inspired the United Nations Member State of El Salvador to enter the issue “Invasion of Foreign Forces Into Tibet” on the First Committee Agenda for November 1950. This meeting, though convened, was postponed due to “insufficient information

The Committee members identified that they did not have access to information, imperative to consider, for appropriate deliberations by their Governments. Thus, First Committee Members were unable to recommend United Nations action.

 

Three prominent information issues were identified:

(1.1) The Tibetan plea to the Secretary General.
(1.2) Demonstration of Tibetan International Instruments of Statehood.
(1.3) The Tibet/China Dispute.
 
(1.1) The Tibetan plea to the Secretary General.

(1.1.1) The Secretary General did not distribute the Tibetan plea to Members of the General Assembly, although he was obliged to do so under the UN Resolution 378 V, “Duties of States in the Event of the Outbreak of Hostilities”, declared at the 3 08th UN Plenary Meeting, 17th November 1950.
(1.1.2) The “Invasion” was scheduled for consideration on the 24th November 1950 First Committee Agenda, thus obligating the Secretary General to respond according to procedure declared in the 378 V Resolution, 17th November 1950.

(1.1.3) The Secretary General was repeatedly requested, at least on three separate occasions, to distribute the Tibetan plea. The Member of El Salvador, who had initiated the issue of the “Invasion of Foreign Forces Into Tibet” on the First Committee Agenda, states his explicit attempts to get the Secretary General to comply during the verbatim of the 24th November meeting.

(1.2) Tibetan International Instruments of Statehood.

(1.2.1) The First Committee purposefully postponed consideration of the “Invasion”, in anticipation of the arrival of the Tibetan Delegation to present their “International Instruments of Statehood”.
(1.2.2) The verbatim of the 24th November 1950 First Committee Meeting concludes with the acknowledgement that the Tibetan delegation was “on its way” to present “International Instruments of Statehood”.

(1.3) The Tibet/China Dispute.

(1.3.1) The 24th November 1950 First Committee Meeting, held to consider “Invasion of Foreign Forces Into Tibet”, identified, in the verbatim, the crisis as a “Dispute” regarding the aggressive invasion across Tibetan territorial boundaries.
(1.3.2) The United Nations has recorded the territorial invasion of Tibet, by Chinese forces, as a “Dispute”, filed in June 1959. The “Dispute” file was officially handled at least 16 times, according to the file roster. There is no indication that this initial “Dispute” file has been reviewed since October 1968. Identification of the file is made by reference to “P0 240 Tibet”.
(1.3.3) Under the United Nations Charter, Chapter Five, The Security Council, Article 27, Paragraph 3, decisions under Chapter VI (Pacific Settlements of Disputes), under paragraph 3 of Article 52 (Regional Arrangements):

“A Party to a Dispute shall abstain from voting”

(1.3.4) As China is clearly a “Party” to the Dispute with Tibet, China is obligated under the United Nations Charter to abstain from vetoing on any issue related to the Tibet Dispute.
(1.3.5) The PRC, as Parties to the Tibetan Dispute, have been allowed inappropriate influence considering the outstanding and unresolved nature of the “Dispute”. The PRC changed the title of reference from the historical United Nations recognition of “Tibet”, to what is now referred to as “Xizang”. This historical interuption is demonstrated through scrutiny of United Nation’s yearbooks. The initial U.N. yearbooks refer to Tibet as “Tibet”. From the period of PRC takeover of the China
seat, and PRC subsequent influence thereof, reference to the title of Tibet has been changed to Xizang”.

Conclusion

None of the First Committee Members had the Plea to consider in 

context, nor information regarding the international character of the incident to relate back to their Governments for direction. This condition has remained in perpetuity for 47 years, and is yet to be redressed. Furthermore, during the period of perpetuity, the “People’s Republic of China” took the United Nations seat for China. Thus, the original “Party to the Dispute” with Tibet became active within the United Nations forum.

Since the PRC placement at the U.N., the terms of reference for “Tibet” has been changed to Xizang’. Has this change interfered with the original “Dispute” file? Is it a cause why the original “Dispute” file appears not to have been addressed since 1968?

2. Due to the situation of perpetuity, the issue of Tibetan Statehood remains unconsidered by the United Nations.
United Nations mechanisms for “States” to employ peaceful solutions to “Disputes”, have not been utilised. Thus, the Tibetan Nation continues to suffer the severe consequences of this delayed presentation of their “State” status.

(2.1) United Nations records clarify the mistaken assumption that to be a “State” one must be recognised by other “States”. According to the “Convention of Rights and Duties of States”, signed at Montevideo in 1933, “The political existence of the State is independent of recognition by other States”.

(2.2) The Tibetan Government in Exile is able to demonstrate that it meets the traditional definition of “Statehood” by: (1) Having a population, (2) Having a Government, (3) Possessing a territory -(4) Maintaining international interchange.

(2.3) Demonstration of Tibetan State Instruments – such as: (a) Tibetan Seal of Government, (b)Tibetan International Treaties, (c) Tibetan Flag, (d) Tibetan currency, (e) Tibetan Postage, (f) Tibetan passport

(2.4) The truth that all of these Tibetan International Facts and Instruments have been functional entities of the Tibetan State, used in commerce, and agreement with other States, demonstrates historical recognition of their International and State character.

(2.5) The International Law Commission explicitly exclaims: “Recognition is unconditional and irrevocable”. (Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1971, Vol II, Part II, page 16.)

Conclusion

United Nations records document, via the “Convention on The Rights and Duties of States”, signed at Montevideo in 1933, that: “The political existence of the State is independent of recognition by other States”. This is further confirmed by the International Law Commission in 1971, that: “Recognition is unconditional and irrevocable”. These give historical testimony that Tibet does not require current recognition by any State to be, in fact, a State.
These conditions of international agreement regarding Statehood, especially the 1933 Montevideo Convention, now bring the original treatment of the Tibetan Plea by the United Nations Secretary General, into severe scrutiny.

However, it is agreed that political co-operation is dependent on such recognition. Therefore, the importance of demonstrating the historical, and current, functional capacities of the Tibetan Government is imperative to the task of international recognition. The effort to achieve current acknowledgement is based in the belief that the international community of States will respect historical root doctrines, as presented in Montevideo and by the Law Commission, and, thus respected, will guide each State’s decision regarding Tibet, based in the root of international agreement.

A Way Forward

The Tibetan Government in Exile has endeavored to establish dialogue with the PRC for decades. Though sincere efforts have continued over the years, no concrete result has been achieved. We must remain hopeful, but also remain vigilant. The PRC must understand negotiations are the inevitable bottom line; private or internationally monitored.

The strategy discussed herein represents a full scale, comprehensive plan to internationally make clear the bottom line demand is for negotiations. Let it be understood, should private efforts fail, the need for international monitoring will be a prepared final alternative for remedy. The strategy to clarify “Tibetan Statehood”, and reveal the “Dispute Status” are not distracting approaches to simply confront the PRC. Rather, the vehicles of both Statehood and Dispute Status, are the prerequisites to obtain the key to the United Nations door of Dispute Resolution mechanisms.

Historically, the Tibetan effort has channeled all energies to the attention of the Human Rights violations within Tibet. However, as remaining the falsely perceived “internal affair” of China, these efforts have gone without achieving resolve.

The International Community of United Nations Member States is yet to be empowered by any mechanistic facilitation to engage United Nations deployment of specific conflict resolutionary tools. Clarification of both Tibetan Statehood, and revealment of the outstanding “Dispute” status, provides those tools to empower the international community of U.N. Members to act within appropriated United Nations Policy and Procedure.

It must be clearly understood, that the initiative to clarify Statehood and Dispute Status, is solely to achieve international negotiation protection and participation by the United Nations. The message to be sent to the PRC regarding this initiative is bottom line negotiations; privately, or internationally monitored.

The combined effort of pursuing private negotiations, accompanied by the relentless pursuit of International participation and monitoring, is a bonafide opportunity to clearly checkmate the issue of negotiations. There is no other goal.

The report sets out a process by which this “international mistake of the century” and consequent gross miscarriage of justice can be reversed by the international community. A way forward to implement a peaceful, negotiated resolution for the crisis of Tibet is identified.

3. The first step is to provide the opportunity for Tibet to demonstrate Statehood. As a State, the United Nations mechanisms of resolve become available to the Tibetan Nation.

(3.1) In the event of hostilities between States, the Secretary General is obliged to send a “Peace Observation Contingency”, as per United Nations Resolution 378 V, “Duties of States In The Event of The Outbreak of Hostilities” 3 08th Plenary Meeting, declared on 17th November 1950.

(3.2) In the event of a “Dispute” between States, the Secretary General is obliged to “Administrate the Constitution of a Panel For Inquiry and Conciliation”, UN Resolution 268 III, 199th Plenary Meeting; 29th April 1949.

4. United Nations Policy and Procedure must be followed to engage the process for Tibet to demonstrate “Statehood”.

(4.1) As the First Committee of the General Assembly has remained in perpetual postponement for 47 years, waiting for the demonstration of Statehood by the Tibetan Government, the first priority is to reopen this postponement and demonstrate Tibetan International Instruments of Statehood.

(4.2) Reopening of the First Committee Postponement requires a LEN Member Nation to agree to address the “General Committee”, which considers such issues for it’s recommendation concerning the matter, to the General Assembly.

However, the “General Committee” is only a body designed for recommendation. The General Assembly has, on numerous occasions, decided to ignore the recommendations of the General Committee when the General Assembly wanted to hear information directly.

Here, it is imperative to understand that the task will be to convince as many United Nation Members regarding the “new and significant information” that is to be provided to the General Assembly.

The process for approving a G.A. Agenda item, will be dependent on a majority vote, cast among the General Assembly, as was the case concerning the “Question of Tibet” during the years, 1959, 1961.

Therefore, the task over the next year is to thoroughly inform, and prepare, each UN Member for that General Assembly Vote regarding the reopening of the postponement for the GA Assembly agenda.

The UN Member requesting the reopening of the postponement must announce that:

(a) “Significant information” is now available for consideration. (This claim will be supported by submissions of internationally recognized authoritarian opinion regarding:) The continuance of Tibet’s opportunity to demonstrate “International Instruments of Statehood”.
The revealment of the United Nation’s “Dispute” file on Tibet, and the international ramifications thereof

Further elaboration by qualified opinions in support of the Tibetan demonstration of Statehood, namely;

What “International Instruments” constitute a legal demonstration of Statehood?

The legal “significance” of International Instruments of Statehood.
What constitutes illegal impediens to bonafide “Statehood” in the eyes of the international community.

What Rights are inherent in Statehood.
How can Statehood be demonstrated under the extraordinary conditions of exile.

How has the League of Nations, and the United Nations, responded to Governments in Exile?

(b) “Reopening of the postponement for inclusion on the General Assembly Agenda is requested”.

Once a U.N. Member State submits this notice of new “significant information”, and requests to reopen the postponement, the General Committee is then seized with the decision to make a recommendation to the General Assembly.

(4.3) The People’s Republic of China is a Member of the General Committee, and will have a vote on that Committee. However, there is no veto power associated with the General Committee, who only maintains a recommendation status.

It is clear that it is the responsibility of the United Nations and its Member States to ensure that, as a ‘Party to the Dispute”, China will be obligated, under the UN Charter, to abstain from vetoing should the Tibet/China Dispute ever be referred to the Security Council for any reason.

End Resolve:

The strategy pursues that once the Tibetan Government in Exile demonstrates it’s “International Legal Instruments of Statehood”, and the Tibet/China Dispute status is clearly revealed, the Secretary General, and the General Assembly, will be in a bonafide position to respond to the Tibetan crisis through the United Nations Policy and Procedures, which clearly delineate the Dispute Resolution processes for States.

Thus, we all maintain one goal, negotiated settlement. Privately, or publically inspired. The choice is incremental. The choice for checkmate.

5. The Report also explores other international precedents, which demonstrate resolve on the part of the international community to circumstances similar to the Tibet/China Dispute.

(5.1) Trusteeship.
(5.2) Internationalisation.
(5.3) Economic Mechanisms.
(5.4) Reconstruction.

There are many scholars in the legal field amongst the Tibet Support Group Network, I hope that one day one of you will pick up where late Claudia had left off and take these findings seriously and do something for Tibet. Thuten Kesang June 2004

TIBET: AN OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Occupied Tibet

A Long History of Sovereignty

While China claims that Tibet has always been a part of China, Tibet has a history of at least 1300 years of independence from China. In 821 China and Tibet ended almost 200 years of fighting with a treaty engraved on three stone pillars, one of which still stands in front of the Jokhang cathedral in Lhasa.

The treaty reads in part: Both Tibet and China shall keep the country and frontiers of which they are now possessed. The whole region to the East of that being the country of Great China and the whole region to the West being assuredly the country of Great Tibet, from either side there shall be no hostile invasion, and no seizure of territory… and in order that this agreement establishing a great era when Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and Chinese shall be happy in China shall never be changed, the Three Jewels, the body of Saints, the sun and the moon, planets and stars have been invoked as witness.

The three stone pillars were erected, one outside the Chinese Emperor’s palace, one on the border between the two countries, and one in Lhasa.

During the 13th and 14th centuries both China and Tibet came under the influence of the Mongol empire. China claims today that Tibet and China during that time became one country, by virtue of the Mongols domination of both nations. In validating this claim, it must first be remembered that virtually all of Asia was dominated by the Mongols under Kublai Khan and his successors, who ruled the largest empire in human history. Second, the respective relationships between the Mongols and the Tibetans and between the Mongols and Chinese must be examined. These two relationships were not only radically different in nature, but they also started and ended at different times. Tibet came under Mongol influence before Kublai Khan’s conquest of China and regaining complete independence from the Mongols several decades before China regained its independence.

While China was militarily conquered by the Mongols, the Tibetans and the Mongols established the historically unique “priest patron” relationship, also known as CHO-YON. The Mongol aristocracy had converted to Buddhism and sought spiritual guidance and moral legitimacy for the rule of their vast empire from the Tibetan theocracy. As Tibet’s patrons they pledged to protect it against foreign invasion. In return Tibetans promised loyalty to the Mongol empire.

The Mongol-Tibetan relationship was thus based on mutual respect and dual responsibility. In stark contrast, the Mongol-Chinese relationship was based on military conquest and domination. The Mongols ruled China, while the Tibetans ruled Tibet. The Mongol empire ended in the mid-14th century.

In 1639, the Dalai Lama established another CHO-YON relationship, this time with the Manchu Emperor, who in 1644 conquested China and established the Qing Dynasty.
By the middle of the 19th century, the Munchu influence in Tibet had waned considerably as the Manchu empire began to disintegrate. In 1842 and 1856 the Manchus were incapable of responding to Tibetan calls for assistance against repeated Nepalese Gorkha invasion. The Tibetans drove back the Gorkhas with no assistance and concluded bilateral treaties.

In 1911 the CHO-YON relationship came to its final end with the fall of the Manchu Dynasty. Tibet formally declared its Independence in 1912 and continued to conduct itself as a fully sovereign nation until its invasion by Communist China an 1949.

1. Tibet governed itself without foreign influence, conducted its own Foreign affairs, had its own army and operated its own postal system. Tibet sovereignty was recognised by its neighbours as well as by Britain, with whom Tibet entered into a series of treaties regarding travels and trade.

 

2. 1904 Britain invaded Tibet and subsequently Convention agreed between Tibet and Britain.
3. 1912 The last of the Chinese troops expelled from Tibet and Dalai Lama proclaims Tibet Independence.

4. During the Second World War Tibet remained neutral, despite strong pressure from the USA, Britain and China to allow the passage of raw materials through Tibet.

5. Tibet conducted its international relations primarily by dealing with British, Chinese, Nepalese and Bhutanese diplomatic missions in Lhasa, but also through government delegations traveling abroad. When India became independent, the British Mission in Lhasa was replaced by an Indian one.

6. When Nepal applied for membership of the United Nations in 1949, it cited its treaty and diplomatic relations with Tibet to demonstrate its full international personality.

7. If Tibet was part of China, then there was no need for the 17 point agreement which was forced upon the Tibetan delegation to sign in China in 1951 and then China announced to the world that Tibet was liberated (from whom?).

8. From 1951 to 1959 China broke every promise that she made towards Tibet, resulting in the Tibetan uprising against China in March 1959. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans escaped into exile. From that day onwards Tibet affectively became an occupied country.

9. Today from the legal standpoint, Tibet to this day has not lost its statehood. It is an independent state under illegal occupation. Neither China’s military invasion nor the continuing occupation by PLA has transferred the sovereignty of Tibet to China.

As pointed out earlier, the Chinese government has not claimed to have acquired sovereignty over Tibet by conquest. Indeed, China recognises that the use or threat of force (outside the exceptional circumstances provided for in the UN charter), the imposition of an unequal treaty or the continued illegal occupation of a country can never grant an invader legal title to territory. Its claims are based solely on the alleged subjection of Tibet to a few of China’s strongest foreign rulers in the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries.

How can China – one of the most ardent opponents of imperialism and colonialism – excuse its continued presence in Tibet, against the wishes of Tibetan people, by citing as justification Mongols and Manchu imperialism and its own colonial policies?
- Dr. Michael C Van Walt Van Pragg (International Lawyer) The 

Status of Tibet

10. 28th October 1991, US Congress under a Foreign Authorisation Act passed the resolution wherein they recognised “Tibet, including those areas incorporated into the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai, AN OCCUPIED COUNTRY under the established principal of international law”. The resolution further stated that Tibet’s true representative is the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in exile as recognised by the Tibetan people.

India’s Security Challenges - A Futuristic Perspective

An essay by Ram Sevak, IIM Bangalore, Bangalore

Will the greatest future security threats to India
be from inside or outside the country?

1. INTRODUCTION

“If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle”


The Art of War, Sun Tzu (6th Century BC), Chinese general and military strategist

India is widely believed to have arrived on the global stage. In fact, if one goes by the popular press both domestic and foreign, it is very difficult to not get swayed by the euphony being generated about India and her inevitable ascendance to rightful place in the comity of nations. Nonetheless this essay attempts to desist from merely joining the self-congratulatory chorus and instead objectively analyses the security threats - external, internal, covert and overt, state and non-state - posed to our country. Therefore at the outset, it must be emphasized though I am a strong believer in the idea of India, her resilience and ability to resurrect from every conceivable threat she has faced in the last two millennia; the essay tries to adopt a pragmatic strategist’s approach in the analysis of country’s security environment.

As most of the armies of the world adopt, the paper bases the quantum of threat posed by a security threat through its capability and interest and not by purported intention. We will explicitly list all security threats as well as economic, social, political and technological factors that can give rise to an increased security threat level. We will first analyze external and then internal security threats before evaluating which of the two, if at all, be more threatening to India in the coming decades.

2. EXTERNAL SECURITY THREATS TO INDIA

India has the disadvantage of being situated in close proximity to what is being described as “the epicenter of global terrorism” . Tribal region near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is constantly drawing attention of America’s Global War on Terror (GWOT) since 2001. India’s increasing relevance to the US strategic canvas, troubled relationship with Pakistan since the independence of the country, deteriorating and unpredictable relationship with China, unstable political climate in Nepal along with Maoist insurgency, mistrustful relationship with Bangladesh, civil-war ravaged and still-healing Sri Lanka, authoritarian Myanmar have rendered any fair estimation of Indian preparedness to deal with these security challenges an onerous task. We will now analyze capabilities and interests of each of these players and then asses their influence on India’s strategic calculations.

2.1 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

India’s relationship with the sole military and economic superpower of the world has been on the rise during the previous decade. A new shift in Indo-US relations was witnessed during President Clinton’s visit in 2000, fortified by Presidents Bush and Obama’s visit to the country. That said, although India remains ideologically non-committal to signing the CTBT and NPT regime; there has been tremendous improvement in the nuclear energy field through singing the Indo-US Nuclear Treaty in 2006.

The US has always been a practitioner of hard real-politick, its policies have always been defined by its own interests in the region. The US support to Pakistan’s military through CEATO arrangements in 1960s, later President Nixon’s visit to China in Feb 1972 which was secretly facilitated by Pakistan and resulted in melting the ice between the two nations, support to Pakistan‘s defense apparatus and Taliban through 1980s and now military offensive in the Af-Pak tribal region have all been calibrated on the US self-interests. All these steps have had a profound impact on India’s external security environment. The continued US presence in our North-West border is cited to be one of the main reasons behind Pakistan’s belligerent attitude in the aftermath of the Parliament attack in 2001 and 26/11mayhem in 2008. The Pakistani Army knows Indian options are severely limited to strike across Pakistani territory owing to military assistance she is providing to GWOT. Apart from limiting India’s punitive capability against Pakistan for its sponsoring terrorist attacks and their infrastructure in India, the US has also provided substantial financial and military to Pakistan which have adverse consequences to our strategic calculations.

Nonetheless the US is likely to dominate world affairs for at least another two decades. India has to work towards minimizing adverse impact of the US-Pak assistance on our external security. On a lighter note, India should emphasize to the US that for fighting tribal insurgents in its North-Western region; Pakistan does not need F-16s and nuclear submarines!

2.2 PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Indo-China relations have been marked with distrust and fear on both sides after 1962 border clash which resulted in China usurping Aksai Chin area in J&K giving it easy road access from the Tibetan plateau to remote Xinxiang region in the West. Additionally China’s rise in the past three decades has given it tremendous weight in international political and security circles. China has patiently been working towards building military-economic and political alliances around India’s periphery – termed as “strings of pearl strategy”. China remains India’s number one security threat. It has provided consistent military assistance to Pakistan for use against India, funded armed rebels in the North-East and has continued to up the ante in diplomatic circles through stapled visas, visa denials and spying on Tibetan Diaspora in India.

Although India needs to be sensitive towards Chinese sensitivities towards Tibet, India has failed to play an assertive role in communicating its interests to the Chinese side. On the other hand, China has built up superior civilian and military infrastructure along Indo-Tibet border. Our defense preparedness vis-à-vis China leaves much to be desired. As has rightly been enunciated by one of our Army Chiefs , the possibility of Two-Front War scenario with both Pakistan and China should be factored in while preparing our doctrine of war and operational readiness.

To match China’s might and thwart any misadventure from our Northern neighbor, we should invest heavily in our infrastructure in border areas, phase out obsolete military hardware, raise at least 3 mountain divisions for the Eastern sector and shore up anti-ballistic missile capability through expedited Agni programs. Fortunately Indian economy’s healthy growth in the past decade has ensured greater defense outlay but even now our defense budget at 2.1% is way below 4.5% and 4.7% of Pakistani and Chinese budgets as % of their respective GDP and even the allocated funds do not get fully utilized for modernizing the forces but for the lack of speedy and transparent procurement procedures.

A look at the following chart shows the yawning gap between the defense expenditures of China and India . China is widely known to have unders tated its publicly announced defense budgets. The defense expenditure for Pakistan does not include capital outlay hence actual spending should be higher than shown here. Hence the need to selectively utilize our limited defense outlay for maximizing lethality of our forces.



To that end recent successful trial of indigenously designed and developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas is a welcome development. Similarly other big-ticket purchases for example C130s and Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCAs) should also be expedited for induction into the Indian Air Force. Indian Navy’s recent announcement of forming an Andaman specific command is a right step towards influencing Malacca strait area which can be one of the pressure points on the Chinese Navy in the event of a prolonged conflict. But our Navy needs much awaited aircraft career to project military power away from the shores. Unfortunately Russian aircraft carrier Gorshkov is waiting for about a decade for acquisition. Other steps should be towards economically integrating countries in our immediate neighborhood to balance strategic Chinese investment in these countries. A strong political will is required to transform the forces and provide them necessary resources to successfully face the challenges on the external front.

2.3 PAKISTAN

The perennial challenge before Indian defense apparatus to manage external covert and overt threat from Pakistan does not need any emphasis. Since the birth of that country, we have fought them four times in war - 1948, 1965, 1971 and 1998. Besides the country is facing low intensity conflict in J&K abetted and sponsored by Pakistani military, in the North-East and through support to various fringe extremist group within the country. The country also faces huge challenge before its economy in the form of fake rackets being operated from Karachi and Dubai and widely believed to have blessings of Pakistan’s infamous Inter-Services Intelligence – its external spy agency.

As the following chart shows, though in absolute terms terrorism related deaths in India have shown a decline; the potential for disturbing communal harmony within the country through such machinations cannot be underestimated. The fatalities here include all three kinds of death – civilians, security forces personnel and the terrorists . We will during the later part of the article explore how external agencies with covert or overt support from nefarious elements within the country can potentially destabilize the security situation.



Thus Pakistan remains one of our principle worries at both external and internal security fronts. Besides on the basis of its long-standing strategic partnership with China, it can stretch our armed forces capabilities in the Eastern sector. The modernization plans of Karakoram highway, the development of Gwadar as a n aval port by the Chinese Navy and covert assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear and missile program are on the anvil; these two countries should be watched very carefully in our defense planning. Rapid implementation of the mooted Cold-Start Strategy should be pursued by the forces to neutralize Pakistani threat quickly in a two-front war scenario and deny the bigger neighbor to our North an advantage from the Western sector.

2.4 IMMEDIATE NEIGHBORHOOD

Unfortunately our other neighbors with the exception of Bhutan also don’t provide any succor to military planners and political leaders and are equally as challenging as China and Pakistan. While Nepal is in the grip of political turmoil since the ouster of unpopular King Gyanendra, India has to play its cards carefully lest it be seen with a big brother agenda. India and Nepal share an open boundary with free exchange of people and currency across the borders. Although few contentious points remain in the Indo-Nepalese relations; they should not be allowed to obstruct our efforts in ensuring political stability in this strategically important neighbor of hours. Perhaps Indian leftist parties can be utilized by the Central government to persuade Maoist leadership in Nepal to desist from mollycoddling too much with the Chinese to our and Nepal’s detriment.

Bangladesh on the other hand is showing signs of delivering on the stated policy of the Government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of not letting her country’s soil for anti-India activities. Bangladesh has recently handed over many high profile terrorist leaders hiding in their country. India has also reciprocated with huge USD 1 billion economic assistance in the form of line of credit to Bangladesh . But India should actively continue to manage her somewhat uneasy relationship with the Opposition leader in Bangladesh former PM Mrs. Begum Khalida Zia. Seeking active Bangladeshi cooperation in destroying the terrorist infrastructure of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HuJI) remains a challenge for Indian security agencies.

Although India at first neglected their relationship with Burmese military rulers, there have been improvements in the past few years in our bilateral relations. China has been investing in Kyaukryu and Sittwe as commercial ports on the west coast close to our NE states. Both of these ports can be used as a naval base and should be a cause of concern. India also needs to co-opt Myanmar for curbing the North Eastern rebel groups e.g. NSCN, ULFA and Manipur rebels which find shelter in dense forests along the international border. For that increased economic and military cooperation without inviting international limelight is a challenge as recently the US has started objecting to our strengthening relationship with the junta.

India also faces competition from China in keeping Sri Lanka attuned to our interests. The recently finished Civil War in the North-East Sri Lanka has incurred huge emotional and economic costs for the Indian Tamils. Thus encouraging cordial linguistic relations in Sri Lanka through persuading Lankan government towards equitable distribution of resources and fair treatment of ethnic minorities is a priority for Indian foreign policy mandarins. Bhutan has demonstrated sensibilities to our concerns by wiping off ULFA rebels in their territory in 2003 and India rightly assists in their economic, social and defense developments. Similarly India should also manage our closest ally during the Cold War era – Russia – to counterbalance China and procuring critical defense supplies.

3.INTERNAL SECURITY THREATS TO INDIA

India’s internal security challenges can be categorized under two heads – insurgency and extremism. We will explore the internal security threats to India in these lines.

3.1 INSURGENCY
India faces huge challenges in dousing the insurgency fires in many parts of the country – from the dense forests of Central India covering Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, few districts in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, few parts of Andhra Pradesh (so called Red Corridor) to North-East India. We all know the Pakistani sponsored and mooted terrorist activities in the state of J&K since 1989. Besides there are dozens of militant groups in ethnically diverse North Eastern part of the country. Indian strategy so far has been to first let a state handle its law and order situation and intervene only in cases of extreme urgency. This strategy needs a rethink because of signs of consolidation among many of the freedom-seekers e.g. there are indications that Maoists have tried to forge ties with Kashmiri separatists and ULFA to synergize their activities. Furthermore as Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) in India stretches has their proximity to important cities and both north-south and east west lines of communication - termed as “potentially dangerous” by the Indian Army . Therefore for successfully tackling the menace of LWE, two pronged strategy needs to be adopted – focus on socio-economic uplift of the affected areas as it is unfulfilled promise of the Indian state to her citizens (aka Directive Principles of the State) and secondly this is one of the root-causes of the rise of Naxal movement in the Indian hinterland. Sincere efforts must be taken to implement inclusive growth as an objective of public policy. On fighting the insurgency, inter-state cooperation is a must and jurisdictional issues should not be allowed to tackle a nation-wide insurgency. Failing which, it must be emphasized India will face sever governance crisis internally and might even descend into chaos.

Insurgency in NE part of the country goes till 1950s and has its genesis in the way those states were integrated into the Indian Union. Much water has since flown down the river Brahmaputra to reverse the flow of time. Inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony should be maintained in the highly sensitive region through grass-root level participation of people. Besides illegal migration from Bangladesh rightly fuels resentment among the rightful Indian citizens and there should be no vote-bank politics with this critical development in Assam and other states. Otherwise changed demographics of these states can wreck havoc on the internal security of the country in the coming decades.

For tackling the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, numerous tomes have been written. But in a nutshell, the issue requires firm handling from the Centre. It is widely documented that Pakistani state fuels the seeds of alienation among the Kashmiri youth. Even within the state of J&K, Jammu and Ladakh have not shown secessionist movements and are well-integrated into the mainstream. It is only the Kashmir Valley which has seen such activities and adequate focus should be given towards job creation in this region.

3.2 EXTREMISM

Religious extremism is other main internal security threat to the country. Without establishing cause-and-effect for this phenomenon as do most of the Right and Left wing intellectuals, there is urgency to tackle this issue. Fair and transparent law enforcement and quick, efficient judicial apparatus are required to stem the tide of religious extremism in the country – both minority as well as majority. Recent rhetorical statements from the politicians of certain political spectrum to milk this challenge for their advantage are indeed unfortunate.

Other challenges to internal security are astoundingly high level of corruption, political factionalism and caste wars – all of which require seasoned and firm political vision.

4. WHICH IS GREATER THREAT - INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL?

It is indeed a complex task to determine which of the two threats will be greater for India. In fact, in highly dynamic external security situation and rapidly evolving internal socio-economic developments, the relative strengths of these challenges cannot be determined with certainty. But one can say that an internally weak nation cannot fight an external adversary successfully. So tackling internal insurgency successfully is a greater and immediate challenge than fighting wars abroad. Continued insurgency can provide a fillip to external aggression from our adversaries sensing internal weakness. For example, left wing ultras can cripple rail and road infrastructure in the event of war and our enemies can very well factor this into their calculations. Similarly insurgencies in India are abetted and supported by our adversaries and the impact of the two challenges cannot be isolated per se.

CONCLUSION

As has been argued throughout this article, in area as humongous as national security it is difficult to ascertain which of the two threats – external or internal – will pose greater security threat to the country going forward. But if we take nation as an organism, to fight an external adversary internal strength is prerequisite. Internal cohesion and external defense preparedness is what gives a nation lethal power to deter a potential aggressor and preserve freedom. Indian history has shown throughout millennia, we have lost our freedom and riches by neglecting our frontiers or through internal factionalism. Any nation which is getting rich without paying adequate focus on defense invites aggression. Are our policymakers ready for the challenge to steward safely an ascendant India of the 21st Century?

The essay posted here represents the views of the author only and not of INDIA Future of Change.
This is one of the winning essays from the INDIA Future of Change Essay-Writing Contest 2010-11
as evaluated by Financial Times, the knowledge partner for the contest.

http://www.indiafutureofchange.com/featureEssay_D0111.htm

Insurgency in India's Northeast Cross-border Links and Strategic Alliances

Wasbir Hussain*

India's Northeast is one of South Asia's hottest trouble spots, not simply because the region has as many as 30 armed insurgent organizations 1 operating and fighting the Indian state, but because trans-border linkages that these groups have, and strategic alliances among them, have acted as force multipliers and have made the conflict dynamics all the more intricate. With demands of these insurgent groups ranging from secession to autonomy and the right to self-determination, and a plethora of ethnic groups clamouring for special rights and the protection of their distinct identity, the region is bound to be a turbulent one.

Moreover, the location of the eight2 northeastern Indian States itself is part of the reason why it has always been a hotbed of militancy with trans-border ramifications. This region of 263,000 square kilometres3 shares highly porous and sensitive frontiers with China in the North, Myanmar in the East, Bangladesh in the South West and Bhutan to the North West. The region's strategic location is underlined by the fact that it shares a 4,500 km-long international border with its four South Asian neighbours, but is connected to the Indian mainland by a tenuous 22 km-long land corridor passing through Siliguri in the eastern State of West Bengal, appropriately described as the ‘Chicken's Neck.'
Battles at Home, Links Abroad

Trans-border linkages of Northeast Indian insurgent groups started developing within less than 10 years of the country's independence from the British yoke. The father of the Naga insurgency, Angami Zapu Phizo, chief of the rebel Naga National Council (NNC), had left the Naga Hills in 1956 to fight for an independent Naga homeland from foreign shores. He traveled through the then East Pakistan and Switzerland, to arrive, eventually, in London in 1960, and continued to pursue his dream from the British capital until his death in April 1990. His daughter Adinno Phizo, who has succeeded him as the NNC president, is still pushing that demand from her home in London.4.

In 1972, New Delhi declared the NNC an unlawful organization under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967, and launched a massive counter-insurgency offensive. Cornered and faced with reverses, the insurgents agreed to hold peace talks with the Indian Government. This led to the signing of the controversial Shillong Accord on November 11, 1975, between a section of the NNC and its ‘underground government,' the Naga Federal Government (NFG) and the Government of India. The signatories to this agreement accepted the Indian Constitution and agreed to surrender their weapons and join the Indian national mainstream.5

A group of around 140 NNC cadres, however, repudiated the Shillong Accord and refused to surrender. They formed a new insurgent group called the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) under the leadership of Thuingaleng Muivah, Isak Chisi Swu and S. S. Khaplang. The significant point to be noted is that this new group, formed in 1980, took shape and was launched from bases inside Myanmar.6 With the passage of time, the NSCN emerged as the most radical and powerful insurgent group fighting for the Naga cause. Clannish divisions among t he Nagas (Konyaks and Tangkhuls) resulted in the split of the NSCN in 1988. The Konyaks took the lead in forming the NSCN-K (Khaplang) under the leadership of Khole Konyak and S. S. Khaplang. The faction, led mostly by the Tangkhuls under the leadership of Swu and Muivah, came to be known as the NSCN-IM (Isak-Muivah).

The NSCN, after its formation inside Myanmar and having established itself as a front-ranking insurgent group in India's Northeast, started providing arms training and other logistic support to outfits such as the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), formed in April 1979 to fight for a ‘sovereign, Socialist Assam.' The ULFA started sending its cadres for advanced ‘military training' at the hands of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), an anti-Yangon rebel group in Myanmar, from 1988 onwards. Surrendered or captured ULFA rebels, interviewed by this writer, have confirmed having received arms training at the hands of KIA instructors inside Myanmar. 7 American author Shelby Tucker writes about having met ULFA ‘chairman' Arabinda Rajkhowa at the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), political wing of the KIA, at Pajau Bum, during his trek across Myanmar around 1989.8 Former ULFA cadres say the group's ‘commander-in-chief', Paresh Barua, too, was in Myanmar's Kachin hills around that time.

Such trips were among the first attempts by rebels from Assam to strengthen strategic alliances with militant groups located in India's South Asian neighbours like Myanmar. In 1985 itself, the ULFA opened shop in Bangladesh, setting up safe houses at Damai village in the Moulvi Bazaar district, bordering the Northeastern Indian State of Meghalaya.9 In 1990, the ULFA had its Pakistani contacts in place, and leaders like Munin Nobis (since surrendered) were instrumental in establishing the links. Nobis told this writer during extensive interviews in October 2002 that the Pakistanis facilitated the crossover of a number of ULFA leaders, including Paresh Barua, into Afghanistan through Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. These visitors, assisted by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), met Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a top Afghan Mujahideen leader of the time. Not surprisingly, ULFA cadres, who surrendered in the wake of the Bhutanese military assault on their camps in December 2003, talked of the presence of an Afghan-trained artillery expert in their Bhutan bases. 10 By the end of 1990 and early 1991, the ULFA had set up well-entrenched bases inside Southern Bhutan, mainly in the district of Samdrup Jhongkar, bordering western Assam's Nalbari district.

The rebels' entry into the Himalayan Kingdom followed the first organized counter-insurgency operations that the Indian Army launched against the ULFA in Assam on the night of November 27-28, 1990, codenamed ‘Operation Bajrang.' The Army offensive came in the wake of the ULFA creating a virtual reign of terror in the State, killing, kidnapping and extorting money from tea companies and others, and New Delhi's dismissal of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) Government of Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta for its alleged failure in maintaining law and order. Unlike in Myanmar, where Indian insurgent groups like the ULFA had allies like the KIA, in Bhutan, they had none. The Himalayan Kingdom was chosen by the ULFA, and later the National Democratic Front of Bodoland and the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), 11 because Southern Bhutan, where it set up base, was not properly policed, was densely wooded and was located just across the border from Assam. Besides, Bhutan, had a small Army and limited capabilities in the beginning, and was reluctant to take on counter-insurgency measures against a group of heavily-armed rebels. It consequently served as an excellent staging area for the Indian separatists, who could return to the safety of their camps in the Kingdom after carrying out violent strikes in Indian territory. Bhutan took 12 years to launch a military crackdown to oust the Indian separatists for reasons that are described later in this paper. But, unlike Thimphu, which had admitted the presence of these foreign militants right from the beginning, Dhaka has always denied the fact that Indian insurgents were staying in, or operating from, Bangladesh.
Bangladesh: Partner in Terror?

On December 21, 1997, Bangladesh immigration and security officials arrested ULFA ‘general secretary', Anup Chetia, from downtown Dhaka's North Adabor locality. The main charges against the Indian separatist leader were illegal entry into Bangladesh, possession of two forged Bangladeshi passports (Nos. 0964185 and 0227883), possession of an unauthorized satellite telephone and illegal possession of foreign currency of countries as diverse as the US, UK, Switzerland, Thailand, Philippines, Spain, Nepal, Bhutan, Belgium, Singapore and others.12 Two of Chetia's accomplices, Babul Sharma and Laxmi Prasad Goswami, were also arrested along with him the same day. Dhaka often seeks to cite this action by the Bangladeshi authorities against the ULFA leader to drive home its claim that the country would not permit Indian militants to operate from its soil.

The presence of Indian insurgents in safe havens in Bangladesh has never been in doubt, considering the volumes of hard intelligence inputs with New Delhi. In January 2004, New Delhi had handed over a detailed list of 194 Indian insurgent camps located inside Bangladesh.13 This was during the meeting of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) and the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) in New Delhi between January 6 and 9, 2004. If confirmation was needed, a spate of reports relating to multiple incidents on January 2, 2004, and Dhaka's subsequent responses, gave confirmation to India's long-standing complaint that its neighbour was being less than forthcoming on the issue.

On January 2, the BDR raided a hideout of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and captured six of its cadres and seized some weapons and a mobile telephone set. According to media reports originating from Bangladesh, the raided NLFT camp was located near Karisapunji village in the Habiganj district. The United News of Bangladesh identified those arrested as Kokek Tripura, Philip Debbarma, Manjak Debbarma, Bukhuk Debbarma, Satish Debbarma and Shoilen Debbarma.

In another incident on January 2, the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) ‘chief' Ranjit Debbarma's residence in Dhaka was attacked by rocket propelled grenades (RPG). Indian media reports said five ATTF cadres were killed in that attack and eight others, including Debbarma, were wounded.

Acccording to a section of the intelligence community, 14 the January 2 rocket attack occurred in the Shamoli building, apparently owned by a leading Bangladeshi political figure. The ‘chiefs' of the ATTF and ULFA were reportedly staying in this highly secure building. After the rocket attack on the building's 2nd floor, where the ATTF ‘chief' was allegedly staying, the local police swung into action and detained almost everyone in the building. Some of those detained were supposed to have been Bangladeshi intelligence operatives. Four injured persons were taken to hospital. Later, the police released all those detained. These intelligence reports claim that top officials of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) intervened to secure the release of these men. It is claimed that many of those arrested were ULFA cadres, and that this is the same incident that the local media reports in Dhaka had talked about, when they mentioned the arrest of 34 ULFA cadres. It is also claimed that members of a local mafia group called ‘Seven Star' was behind the rocket attack. No independent confirmation of this incident was immediately available.

How did Dhaka respond to these media reports? While it preferred to remain silent on the reports relating to the raid and the arrest of six NLFT cadres as well as the bomb attack on the residence of the ATTF chief, Bangladesh came out with a formal denial of reports about the arrest of 34 ULFA militants from Dhaka. “We would like to categorically state that the reports (about the ULFA rebels' capture) are false, baseless and concocted and have been fabricated to strain the friendly relations between Bangladesh and India. No such incidents took place in the capital city of Dhaka,” a Home Ministry Press Release15 issued in Dhaka on January 3 said. The Bangladesh Home Ministry statement added: “We would also like to reassert the well-known position of the Government of Bangladesh that Bangladesh has never allowed or assisted insurgent groups of any country for acts against that country and this policy was being pursued by the Government consistently and rigorously.

Within the changing global context of counter-terrorism and perspectives on South Asia, Bangladesh is certainly and increasingly on the back-foot, with its official position vis-à-vis Indian insurgent groups increasingly losing the cover of credible deniability. In addition to the volumes of evidence accumulated by Indian authorities, the case against Bangladesh is also gradually being independently validated. For instance, the location of the NLFT hideout that was reported in Bangladesh media as having been raided by the BDR on January 2, 2004 tallies with a location mentioned in the list of 194 Indian insurgent camps inside Bangladesh submitted by the BSF to its Bangladesh counterpart, the BDR, in January 2004. The Indian list stated that the NLFT had a transit camp at Thakurgaon under Chunarughat Police Station in the Habiganj District of Bangladesh. Again, the very fact that Dhaka did not deny the raid and subsequent capture of six NLFT cadres goes against its official position that there are neither camps nor any Indian insurgent cadres operating from Bangladeshi territory.

Denials aside, Bangladesh, by reliable accounts, may in fact be waking up to the need to rein in these foreign militants. This report in a leading English daily from Dhaka, makes interesting reading:

The Home Ministry at a high-level meeting with paramilitary BDR and intelligence agencies yesterday (January 4, 2004) asked them to step up border security and watch on Dhaka to stem infiltration of Indian terrorists. The Ministry officially denied discussion on steps to tackle infiltration of the operatives of the ULFA and other outfits, but meeting sources confirmed the agenda. They said Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury and State Minister Lutfozzaman Babar asked the DGFI and NSI (National Security Intelligence) agencies to keep an eye on suspicious people in hotels and rest houses in Dhaka. The ministers also asked the agencies to strengthen vigilance in the porous bordering areas of Cox's Bazaar, Bandarban, Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Sylhet.16

There is some speculation that Dhaka may, in fact, have been stung by Bhutan's year-end crackdown in 2003 on anti-India separatist camps on its territory, a move for which the Royal Government in Thimphu has received widespread appreciation from nations in the forefront of the global war on terror. But any action that Dhaka may be initiating, does not appear to have been triggered simply because another South Asian neighbour had shown the way by launching an assault on anti-India rebels in the Kingdom, or because New Delhi has been persistent in its claim that an increasing number of camps of Indian insurgents are located inside Bangladesh. It is, rather, the rising pressure of international opinion that is forcing a reassessment in Dhaka17 and could even be compelling it to launch a rather covert offensive against the Indian militants opera ting from Bangladesh.

The publication in part, on December 10, 2003, of a report on Bangladesh, prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and an advisory issued by the US State Department to its citizens and officials posted at or visiting Bangladesh, have been particularly embarrassing for Dhaka. The CSIS report prepared in December 2003, said that the Bangladesh Government was not taking enough measures to prevent the country from becoming a haven for Islamist terror groups in South Asia. The report expressed concern over the activities of terrorists suspected to be connected with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. The CSIS report added that Dhaka was not willing to crack down on terror, and expressed fear of dangers to Canadian aid workers in Bangladesh. Significantly, the report also said that there had been a number of serious terrorist attacks on cultural groups and recreational facilities in Bangladesh, but Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) had been blaming the main Opposition party (the Awami League of former Premier Sheikh Hasina Wajed) for such criminal activities as a matter of routine, rather than zeroing in on the real people or groups behind such acts of violence.

Dhaka rejected the observations made in the CSIS report and has been consistently denying that Bangladesh had become the latest hub of Islamist terror groups, including the Al Qaeda. The fact remains, however, that a local terrorist group, the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-BD), led by Shauqat Osman, with the avowed objective of establishing ‘Islamic rule' in Bangladesh, is indeed active in the country. Western media reports suggest this group has an estimated 15,000 cadres.18

With increasing international attention focused on terrorist and insurgent activities in Bangladesh, Dhaka's past pretence is becoming progressively unsustainable. Nevertheless, the flow of insurgents from India to safe havens in Bangladesh continues. Indeed, with ULFA having lost its bases and once-secure staging areas inside Bhutan, it is expected to turn to two obvious alternate locations, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Yangon has reportedly turned on the heat on Indian insurgents in the country, leaving Bangladesh as the only place that rebels like those of the ULFA have to hold on to. This, too, may not be easy anymore. Dhaka might continue to push ahead with its stand that no Indian insurgents are located or operating from the country, but may eventually have to move as quietly as possible to neutralize these rebels and choke them off within its territory to escape a possibly foolproof indictment by the international community as a nation that has not done enough to combat terror.

It is the articulated views of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's BNP on insurgent groups from Assam, for instance, that increases the level of concern in India. As Opposition leader in May 1998, within six months of Chetia's arrest, Zia had told this writer during an interview at the BNP headquarters in Dhaka that her party would like to regard the ULFA cadres as ‘freedom fighters' just as the Mukti Bahini were freedom fighters. 19 She had then also expressed her gratitude to the people of Assam and Meghalaya for sheltering the Mukti Bahini freedom fighters, indirectly implying that there was nothing wrong in some ULFA men taking shelter inside Bangladesh. That obviously may not be the BNP or Premier Zia's official position now, particularly after 9/11 when the world is engaged in a global war against terror.

It is in this context that some western media reports of the ULFA sending its representatives to attend a meeting of radical Islamist outfits, organized by the HUJI-BD, at a secret rendezvous in Bangladesh in the summer of 2002, arouse curiosity.20 The ULFA is not an Islamist outfit and is rather secular in the sense that its cadres are drawn from diverse groups and communities, cutting across religions. But what cannot be ignored is the possibility that ULFA would have to arrange for sanctuary for some of these Islamist militant leaders or cadres as a quid pro quo for its continued stay in Bangladesh, should the pressure against terror is to be increased by Dhaka. However, it would appear that the Bangladeshi Islamists would rather turn to the Rohingya rebels in adjoining Myanmar due to the fact that their chances of hiding in that terrain would be better than in India's Northeast, where the military is constantly on the insurgents' trail.
Bhutan: Taste of War

At the crack of dawn on December 15, 2003, Bhutanese monarch, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, unleashed his small military machine, comprising the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) and the Royal Body Guards (RBG), to expel an excess of 3,000 21 heavily armed Indian separatists belonging to three different groups, the ULFA, NDFB and the KLO. Bhutan said the insurgents were operating from 30 camps inside the kingdom (ULFA had 13 camps, NDFB 12 and the KLO 5). Buddhist Bhutan had last gone to war against any foreign force 138 years ago when they fought the British. That was the Anglo-Bhutanese war of 1865 in which the Crown' s Army defeated Bhutan's then Deb Raja or temporal head, Sonam Lhendup, and came to exercise much influence on Bhutan's affairs.22 That victory gave the British unhindered trans-Himalayan Middle-level ULFA and NDFB leaders who came for the meetings said they were unable to leave the kingdom immediately,” Aum Neten Zangmo, Bhutan's Foreign Secretary, told this writer by telephone from Thimphu, the nation's capital.23 On the insurgents' response during the last round of talks, a Bhutanese Foreign Ministry statement had this to say:

The ULFA said that it would be suicidal for their cause of independence of Assam to leave Bhutan while the NDFB said that even if they left their present camps, they would have to come back and establish camps in other parts of Bhutan...24

The Foreign Secretary said even during most of the earlier ‘exit talks' ( talks to persuade the rebels to withdraw from the Kingdom), the insurgent groups were represented by middle-level leaders while the Royal Government was represented at the highest level, including that of the Prime Minister and Home Minister.

That was a difficult decision indeed for King Wangchuck to take. Firstly because, the battle capabilities of the RBA and the RBG (the Royal Body Guards is a force actually meant exclusively for protection of the Royal family) were totally untested. If anything, the Bhutanese Forces could have been absolutely rusty, not having had the occasion to fire a single shot except during their training sessions with the Indian Army, which runs a military training centre inside Bhutan. Secondly, a military crackdown could turn the insurgents against the Bhutanese state machinery or its citizens. This, in turn, would make access into the landlocked kingdom difficult as most of the roads into southern Bhutan, the insurgents' stronghold, pass through Indian territory, via the northeastern State of Assam and the eastern State of West Bengal. But, King Wangchuck could wait no more.

The timing of the assault certainly needs to be examined. The Bhutanese cite the mandate of the 81st session of the National Assembly to the Royal Government to try and persuade the insurgents to leave the Kingdom ‘one last time', or to expel them by using m ilitary force. However, that had been the National Assembly's directive for several years. This makes it pertinent to try and zero in on the possible trigger for the operations in December 2003 , twelve years after the rebels had first entered Bhutan. Such an analysis would make it necessary to examine the significance of the relatively smaller and rag-tag group, the KLO, and its affilia tions and linkages, more than those of the ULFA or the NDFB.25

Both the Indian and Bhutanese security establishments were stung by news of the launching of the Bhutan Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) o n April 22, 2003, the 133rd birth anniversary of Lenin.26 Pamphlets widely circulated by this new group in the Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal and in areas inside Bhutan itself, revealed that the new party's objective was to ‘smash the monarchy' and establish a ‘true and new democracy' in Bhutan.27 Both New Delhi and Thimphu were quick to put the KLO under the scanner. Security agencies soon came to the conclusion the KLO was active and had pockets of influence in the strategic North Bengal areas of West Bengal and could act as a bridge between the Maoists insurgents in Nepal and the newly emerging Maoist force in Bhutan. Besides, Indian intelligence agencies were aware of the fact that the KLO had provided sanctuary to fleeing Maoist cadres from Nepal, that the outfit had acted as a link between the Maoists and the radical left-wing activists in Bihar, and that it received help from the Maoists in setting up a number of explosive manufacturing units in North Bengal.

In the final analysis, Bhutan's emerging Maoist threat could have been the key factor in provoking the eventual Army action, although intense pressure from New Delhi to oust the Indian insurgents, as well as the threat the rebels' presence posed to Bhutan's own sovereignty and development, could be the other factors that may have made the King shake off his long-held ambivalence and act decisively.
Thimphu's action: Impact in South Asia

The debate on whether the Bhutanese military carried out the anti-rebel offensive entirely on its own or whether the Indian Army's role, as claimed by New Delhi, was limited to providing nothing more than ‘logistic support' and ammunition, is not very relevant. However, the fact remains that Bhutan carried out a military operation and managed to dismantle the well-entrenched bases of three Indian insurgent groups which were carrying out violent strikes against symbols of Indian Governmental authority as well as civilians with ease, and returning to the safety of their bases in the Himalayan kingdom by simply walking across the porous border.

Thimphu's military strike against the Indian insurgents did create an immediate impact in South Asia in so far as the war against terror was concerned. The following responses were clearly noticeable in the region:

Bangladesh reacted by saying it had sealed its borders with India to prevent Indian insurgents fleeing Bhutan or Myanmar from entering its territory.

The arrest of 34 ULFA cadres in and around Dhaka and the rocket attack on the ATTF chief's apartment in downtown Dhaka were some post-Bhutan offensive developments that cannot be ignored.

The Bangladesh Home Ministry, as mentioned earlier, decided to crack down on Indian militants, and to keep such operations secret, obviously due to Dhaka's official stand that no Indian insurgents were operating from that country.

There were strong indications of Myanmar already tightening its noose on Indian insurgent groups like the NSCN-K and the ULFA, which have bases in the country.28

New Delhi seized the initiative and used the forum of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which was holding its 12th Summit in Islamabad in the first week of January 2004, to call upon nations in the region to actively clamp down on terror. Pakistan could not have missed this strong statement by India to fight terrorism in South Asia as well as globally. The then Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, addressing the Summit, said:

I would like to draw attention to the courageous action taken by His Majesty the King of Bhutan and his government against insurgent groups which were trying to use Bhutanese territory to launch terrorist activities in India. It is an outstanding example of sensitivity to the security concerns of a neighbour which is at the same time in the direct long-term security interest of Bhutan itself.29

Earlier, on January 1, 2004, the then Indian Foreign Minister, Yashwant Sinha, had urged the SAARC countries to emulate Bhutan in flushing out insurgents from their soil.30 New Delhi's remarks and Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigme Thinley's strong plea for the adoption and effective implementation of the protocol on terrorism during the Summit were points that did not go unnoticed. In an indirect reference to Pakistan's role, Thinley, during his address at the Summit, said that the attempt to assassinate Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was a rude reminder of the need to root out terrorism.31

Post 9/11 and, thereafter, post-military offensive by Bhutan, India's neighbours and all those engaged in the global war against terror, had started speaking in a similar language, that terrorism needed to be curbed with a firm hand. During the offensive, in a dramatic move, ULFA ‘chairman', Arabinda Rajkhowa, appealed to the Chinese leadership on December 25, 2003,32 to provide safe passage to the insurgents from Bhutan for temporary shelter in China. Rajkhowa in his fax communication to the Chinese leadership said: “We have come under massive attack of Indo-Bhutan joint forces and our combatants have been forced to retreat up to the Sino-Bhutan border due to all out air and artillery campaigns…”33 Beijing was quick to turn down the ULFA plea and cautioned that it had alerted its frontier forces to prevent any intrusion of Indian militants. A Chinese Embassy spokesperson in New Delhi said the Chinese Frontier Forces were quite capable of preventing the entry of Indian insurgents into their country and that they were closely monitoring the development of the situation.34

It is not that China or sources in China have always maintained a distance from Indian separatists. Indian insurgents had not only visited China in the past for help, but had received assistance from sources within the country. NSCN-IM ‘general secretary', Thuingaleng Muivah, is on record as having said that Naga insurgents had, in the early days, obtained arms from China and Pakistan.35 Of course, Muivah's claims do not match Indian media reports in 2000, that talked of a Chinese ‘agency' supplying machine guns and AK-47 rifles to insurgent groups in India's Northeast. A crossed cheque of half-a-million dollars encashed by a Chinese firm in Beijing revealed the source from where the NSCN-IM was getting arms. News reports talked of NSCN-IM arms procurer, Anthony Shimray, having flown from Bangkok to Beijing in September 2000 and holding t alks with the ‘Chinese agency' in Kunming.36 The report may or may not be correct, but it is undeniable that China has always been looked upon by several Northeast Indian insurgent groups as its ideological source.

While New Delhi may have received sufficient co-operation from Bhutan and Myanmar in combating the separatists, it is yet to get what it would like to from, say Thailand. Pakistan, of course, is a different story altogether. To illustrate: In a major joint Indo-Myanmar anti-insurgency drive in April 1995, the Indian and Myanmarese Armies launched a pincer attack on a group of some 200 Indian insurgents, codenamed ‘Operation Golden Bird,' along the border with Mizoram. Up to 60 ULFA and other Northeast Indian insurgents were killed and several others arrested during the 44-day offensive. The insurgents were returning to their bases in India after procuring a huge consignment of arms from Bangladesh. 37 This military co-operation has been generally continuing between the two nations despite some ups and downs in recent years.

Thailand, too, has been a favourite location of some of the top Northeast Indian insurgent leaders. New Delhi has, for long, been persuading Bangkok to disallow insurgents from the Northeast using Thailand as a sanctuary for striking arms deals and holding strategy sessions. In the mid-nineties, the Royal Thai Navy seized an illegal arms shipment of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of Manipur.38 Ten men were arrested after their 16-metre vessel was intercepted by a Navy patrol boat following a chase in the Andaman Sea off the southern Thai seaport of Ranong. The arrested persons, suspected to be PLA cadres, were found holding Bangladeshi passports. Among the two tons of weapons seized by the Thai Navy were two RPG launchers, 20 American assault rifles, two recoilless guns, four M-79 grenades launchers and more than 10,000 rounds of assorted ammunition.39 It was for the first time that the Thai authorities swooped down on Northeast Indian insurgents, including the ULFA and both factions of the NSCN, who had been using this particular sea route to ferry military hardware to their bases.

However, this appears to have been a one-off action. Since then, New Delhi has not been receiving much help from Bangkok. For instance, on January 19, 2000, Thai authorities arrested Muivah from the Bangkok International Airport. But it is unlikely that the Thai authorities acted against him because of New Delhi's persuasion. According to p ublished reports, Muivah was arrested apparently on the basis of information that he was traveling on a false South Korean passport and that he was actually a North Korean agent on a mission to blow up the South Korean embassy in Bangkok. Media reports have also said that Muivah and the NSCN-IM chairman, Isak Chisi Swu, have been living in Bangkok for more than 20 years now, own apartments and have business interests in the Thai capital.40
Rebel Groupings as Force Multipliers

Events on the insurgency front in India's Northeast have shown that rebel groups have often succeeded in neutralizing the reverses faced by them by entering into deals with other insurgent groups, and these alliances act as force multipliers. Insurgent politics in the region registered a very important development in year 2000—the signing of a deal for joint operations by the ULFA and United National Liberation Front (UNLF), a Manipuri insurgent group w hose primary area of operation was Manipur's Jiribam Valley and neighbouring Assam's Cachar district. A UNLF statement on July 29, 2000, disclosed the agreement between that group and the ULFA for the first time. Significantly, the statement came less than a fortnight after the UNLF claimed responsibility for the July 16, 2000, killing of three soldiers in the Cachar district of Assam. Given the admission about the agreement, the ULFA could well have provided logistic support to the UNLF in carrying out that ambush.

The UNLF, formed on November 24, 1964, under the leadership of Areambam Samarendra Singh to establish an independent socialist Manipur, has a rather frightening history, in so far as its one-time allies are concerned. At its inception, the outfit shared a close ‘political relationship' with the then East Pakistani regime, and in 1969 underwent military training in that country. The group is also said to have backed the Pakistani Army during the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. Not just depending on Pakistan, the UNLF moved closer to China with a team headed by N. Bisheswar Singh proceeding to Lhasa in 1975 to ask for Beijing's assistance. Now headed by Rajkumar Meghen alias Sana Yaima, the UNLF is also close to the NSCN-K and has training camps in Myanmar and Bangladesh.41

It is linkages such as these and the potential for immense trans-border movement by cadres of these groups that has made the ULFA-UNLF pact so significant. The ULFA would like to describe the agreement as a ‘fraternal bond sealed to fulfill certain tactical goals.' It may not have been a purely bilateral pact, but could have emanated from the loose pan-Mongoloid coalition called the Indo-Burma Revolutionary Front (IBRF) forged in May 1990, of which both the ULFA and UNLF were a part. Formed to wage a ‘united struggle for the independence of Indo-Burma', the IBRF itself was a failure, primarily because it was too much of a problem for its leaders to hold on to a coalition of insurgent outfits that claimed to represent diverse tribes and communities.

What then was the need for the ULFA to tie up with the UNLF in 2000 or vice-versa? The ULFA's main fighting machine, until the Bhutanese crackdown in December 2003, was located in Bhutan. For several years before the crackdown, the ULFA had been under pressure from Thimphu to pull out of the Kingdom. Bhutan's Home Minister, Lyonpo Thinley Gyamtsho, confirmed at that time that, by December 31, 2001, the ULFA had indeed closed down four camps as per an agreement of June 2001. By 2001, the ULFA had started feeling the heat and perhaps realized that they would have to leave Bhutan sooner or later.

Under the circumstances, the ULFA perhaps was eyeing the UNLF's bases and training facilities in Myanmar and Bangladesh. A denial from Dhaka notwithstanding, it is a fact that Bangladesh has been a favourite hiding place for the ULFA leaders. The ULFA knew that, in the event of a possible assault on its camps inside Bhutan, the group would have to have an alternative destination to head for, and that would obviously be either Bangladesh or Myanmar, or both. The pact with the UNLF was, therefore, an absolute must for the ULFA, as ‘hiding places' apart, some concrete training bases in Bangladesh and Myanmar would be necessary.

At one stage, some of the ULFA arms consignments were even traced to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, a deal brokered in 1993 by General Bo Mya's Karen National Union (KNU), an anti-Yangon guerrilla group.42 That deal was apparently clinched by ULFA's self-styled foreign secretary, Shasha Choudhury, who visited the KNU base at Manerplaw, on the Thailand-Myanmar border. As surveillance increased, rendering weapons smuggling more difficult, the ULFA might then have pinned its hopes on the UNLF to serve as a conduit for shipment of military hardware from Myanmar rebels.

The UNLF's equations with the Junta in Myanmar also appears to have been extraordinary, at least around year 2000, a fact which the ULFA may have taken note of while forging a deal with it. In December 2001, as many as 192 UNLF cadres, including some top leaders, were ‘arrested' by the Myanmarese Army. Interestingly, all of them were set free by February 14, 2002, in four phases. The entire episode is still shrouded in mystery, particularly because Yangon had been almost simultaneously promising Indian leaders of support in checking cross-border insurgency. Does this mean that the UNLF has some sort of an understanding with the Junta in Myanmar, or a section of it? Answers are difficult to find, but theories abound, particularly because New Delhi was, from the mid-nineties onwards, supposed to have improved relations with Yangon considerably.

There is no scope for complacency in so far as the Indian authorities are concerned. This is because groups such as the NSCN-IM, even while engaging in peace negotiations with New Delhi, supported the 48-hour general strike in Assam and elsewhere in the region called on December 20-21, 2003 by the ULFA, NDFB and KLO in protest against the ‘brutal operations' and ‘human rights violations' he military inside Bhutan to oust the Indian separatists. The conflict dynamics as well as complex rebel equations combine to keep India's Northeast on the boil.

1 The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs' Annual Report for 2002-2003 lists 24 active insurgent groups in the northeastern States (there are several dormant ones). In its chapter titled ‘Security Scenario in the North East', the report states: “The most serious militant affected states/areas viz, the whole of Manipur, Nagaland and Assam, Tirap and Changlang districts of Arunachal Pradesh and a 20 km belt in the states having common border with Assam have been declared as ‘disturbed areas' under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 as amended in 1972.”

2 The State of Sikkim has recently been formally bracketed under ‘Northeast' after it was included into the North Eastern Council (NEC), the region's apex funding and development agency. The other seven States of the Northeast are: Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura.

3 Located at: Longitude 89.46 degree E to 97.30 degree E and Latitude 21.57 degree N to 29.30 degree N.

4 Wasbir Hussain, “Father's Daughter,” Sentinel, Guwahati, August 31, 2003.

5 Wasbir Hussain, “Peace in Naga Country: New Delhi's Challenges in the far-eastern Frontier,” paper presented at the seminar on ‘Peace Initiatives in South Asia,' organized by the Delhi Policy Group and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, at the United Services Institute, New Delhi, on November 28-29, 2001.

6 Ibid.

7 Wasbir Hussain, “We picked up our AKs and fled,” Sentinel, December 24, 2003.

8 Shelby Tucker, Among Insurgents, Walking Through Burma, Delhi: Penguin Books, 2000, pp. 82-83.

9 Disclosures by a top surrendered ULFA leader during an interview with the author on October 23, 2002, at Guwahati.

10 Surrendered ULFA ‘lieutenant', Domeshwar Rabha, said Afghanistan-trained rebel Satabda Kumar was the chief instructor of the ULFA's artillery squad inside Bhutan. Kumar, he said, was also ‘commander' of the group's ‘General Headquarters' in Bhutan that was neutralized during the Bhutanese military assault in December 2003. See Hussain, “We picked up our AKs and fled,” Sentinel, December 24, 2003.

11 For profiles of the ULFA, NDFB and KLO, see South Asia Terrorism Portal, www.satp.org.

12 Wasbir Hussain, “Catch 22 in Dhaka,” September 3, 2003, http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fname=bangladesh&fodname=20030903&sid=1.

13 “Bangla denies presence of ultra camps,” The Assam Tribune, Guwahati, January 10, 2004.

14 Claim made by intelligence sources to the author.

15 The New Nation, Dhaka, Internet edition, January 3, 2004.

16 “Home Ministry orders watch on borders to stop Indian insurgents,” The Daily Star, Dhaka, Internet edition, January 5, 2004.

17 Wasbir Hussain, “Bangladesh: Increasing Pressure”, South Asia Intelligence Review, Vol. 2, No. 26, January 12, 2004, South Asia Terrorism Portal,

18 For profile of HuJI-BD, see South Asia Terrorism Portal, www.satp.org.

19 Wasbir Hussain, “Friendly neighbour, unfriendly acts,” The Hindu, Chennai, November 23, 2002.

20 On May 9, 2002, 63 representatives of nine Islamist groups, including Rohingya forces, the Islamic Oikya Jote and the ULFA, met in Ukhiya and formed the Bangladesh Islamic Manch, a united council under the HuJi's leadership.

21 Bhutanese Foreign Ministry statement to the media issued on December 16, 2003.

22 Bhabani Sen Gupta, Bhutan: Towards a Grass-root Participatory Polity, Delhi: Konark Publishers, 1999, pp. 25-26.

23 Wasbir Hussain, “Bhutan: Going for the Kill,” South Asia Intelligence Review, Vol. 2 No. 23, December 22, 2003, South Asia Terrorism Portal, www.satp.org.

24 Bhutanese Foreign Ministry statement to the media issued on December 16, 2003.

25 Wasbir Hussain, “Bhutan: Timing an Assault,” Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, December 23, 2003, www.ipcs.org.

26 “Maoists form unit in Bhutan,” Times of India, Delhi, May 18, 2003.

27 Ibid.

28 Wasbir Hussain, “Anti-rebel offensive by Junta: Myanmar scene hazy, claims by NSCN-K differ,” Sentinel, January 8, 2004.

29 “PM calls for trust, lauds courageous action of King,” Sentinel, January 5, 2004.

30 “India tells SAARC: Emulate Bhutan to flush out insurgents,” Assam Tribune, January 2, 2004.

31 “All rebel leaders captured: Bhutan,” Sentinel, January 5, 2004.

32 “Arabinda SOS to China for safe passage, shelter,” Sentinel, December 28, 2003.

33 Ibid.

34 “China turns down ULFA plea for safe passage,” Assam Tribune, January 1, 2004.

35 The Rediff Interview/NSCN (I-M) General Secretary Thuingaleng Muivah, January 25, 2001, www.rediff.com/news/2001/jun/25inter.htm.

36 “NSCN ultras negotiate arms deal in China,” The Pioneer, Delhi, October 31, 2003.

37 Wasbir Hussain, “Golden Bird: Army morale soars high,” The Asian Age, Delhi, May 18, 1995.

38 Wasbir Hussain, “Thais help India fight Northeast militants,” Asian Age, Kolkata, 1996.

39 “LTTE-Indian North-East Militant nexus exposed following Thai Arms Seizure,” www.lanka.net/lankaupdate/27_mar_97.html#section1.

40 Wasbir Hussain, “Peace in Naga Country: New Delhi's Challenges in the far-eastern Frontier.”

41 Wasbir Hussain, “Northeast Rebels: Strategic Alliances & Open Borders,” Paper presented at seminar on ‘Dynamics of Border Management, Past, present and future,' organized by the Border Security Force at the Police Officers' Mess, Shillong, October 7-8, 2002.

42 Wasbir Hussain, “ULFA gets new weapons from Khmer Rouge,” Asian Age, August 14, 1995.

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