People's Democracy

THINKING TOGETHER

The CPI(M) has not said anything about the Royal Bhutan Army’s military offensive against the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and other extremist organisations that were operating from Bhutan and conducting militant attacks in India. What is the CPI(M)’s stand on this issue?

--- Rajesh Kumar, Mumbai

THE ULFA, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the Kamtapuri Liberation Organisation (KLO) had entrenched themselves in well established camps in Bhutan for over a decade now. From these, they carried out violent attacks in India, which were intensified in recent years. 

The Left Front government of West Bengal had repeatedly drawn the central government’s attention to the problem, urging it to take up the matter with the Bhutan government to ensure that these outfits were not permitted sanctuary in Bhutan to launch such extremist attacks. The KLO had been carrying out numerous strikes in north Bengal. In an attack on a CPI(M) office recently, the KLO killed five of our comrades. Scores of CPI(M) cadres have lost their lives in this struggle against the KLO that seeks to divide West Bengal and establish a separate Kamtapuri state. Likewise, the establishment of a “sovereign socialist Assam” and a “sovereign Bodoland” are the objectives of the ULFA and NSFB respectively. At the time of the RBA’s military operations, these outfits were operating from as many as 30 camps in Bhutan’s territory.

The Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) claims that the military operations it had launched on December 15, 2003, have “smashed” all the 30 camps. Whatever may have been the motivation, provocation, persuasion or pressurisation, the weakening and the subsequent disarming of these outfits can only provide the much needed relief and respite to the innocent people in these areas who were forced to live in terror.

The CPI(M) has always maintained that no country that seeks good-neighbourly relations can permit the use of its territory to the outfits from other countries to conduct anti-national activities and mount terrorist attacks.

Following the developments in Bhutan, reports are appearing of similar steps being taken by the government of Myanmar (Burma) against anti-India extremist outfits operating from camps inside its territories. One also hopes that the Bangladesh government too would soon take similar steps to flush anti-India extremist outfits out of its territory. In fact, the chief minister of the Left Front government of Tripura has repeatedly drawn the government of India’s attention to the problem and urged it to take up the issue with the Bangladesh government. It has also provided detailed maps identifying the locations of camps in Bangladesh from where anti-India extremist outfits like the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and All Tripura Tigers Force (ATTF) are operating. 

Now, given the positive outcome, in some aspects, of the recently concluded SAARC summit, it is hoped that such measures would be taken to their logical conclusion.

The CPI(M) has always maintained that all these outfits must eschew violence, stop killing and terrorising people and bring their grievances to the negotiating table. A political solution can evolve only through talks and not through mindless terrorist violence.