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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 3, No. 20, November 29, 2004
Data and
assessments from SAIR can be freely published in any form
with credit to the South Asia Intelligence Review of the
South Asia Terrorism Portal
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Terror Speaks
Saji Cherian
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management
On November 27 each year, the cadres of the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
as well as the whole of Sri Lanka listens with bated breath
as the country's most wanted terrorist, Vellupillai Prabhakaran,
delivers his annual 'Mahaveerar Thinam' (Heroes Day) speech.
Each year the 'leader' spells out the broad policy to be
followed by the rebel group, based on the prevailing political
and military equations in the island nation. Since the Ceasefire
Agreement signed by the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE
in February 2002, Prabhakaran has now delivered three Heroes
Day speeches. In 2002, he declared that he would consider
'favourably' a political framework that offers substantial
regional autonomy and self-government to the Tamil people
on the basis of their right to internal self-determination.
The following year, he rejected President Chandrika Kumaratunga's
accusations that his organisation was strengthening its
military power and preparing for war. This year, the portents
are more ominous, as Prabhakaran pointed to the "division,
discord, confusion and contradiction within the Sinhala
political leadership on the Tamil issue," and sounded the
warning that "if the government rejects our urgent appeal,
adopts delaying tactics perpetuating the suffering of our
people, we have no alternative other than to advance the
freedom struggle of our nation." The threat implicit in
the statement goes well beyond the necessary rhetoric of
a Heroes Day address.
Prabhakaran is, of course, quite right about the 'confusion'
within the Sinhalese leadership with regard to the LTTE
and the peace process. President Kumaratunga, for instance,
in an interview to The Hindu, on November 14, asserted
that the LTTE had not given up on its plans to assassinate
her. Referring to Prabhakaran she said that "he is still
thinking of getting me, while holding talks with us." At
the same time, however, she added that the "LTTE had changed
a lot", and "they are willing to explore some solution other
than (an independent Tamil) Eelam."
Conversely, such 'confusion' is altogether absent in the
rebel group's orientation. In October 2004, Anton Balasingham,
LTTE 'ideologue' and chief negotiator, pointed out that
the Tamil Tigers had not abandoned their 'right to secede',
despite agreeing to explore a 'federal solution'. Further,
Kumaratunga and other Sri Lankan leaders have, on various
occasions, alternately praised the Norwegian mediators and
accused them of siding with the LTTE and overlooking rebel
ceasefire violations. The LTTE, on the other hand, has at
no time derided the Norwegians, but has very clear notions
of what the limits of the facilitators' and the donors'
jurisdictions are. On November 3, Balasingham, stated that
"the donor conferences held in Oslo on 25 November 2002
and in Tokyo on 10 June 2003 and the resolutions adopted
at these meetings cannot bind our liberation organisation
to a particular framework of a final political settlement."
With the negotiations between the two sides currently hitting
rock bottom, the Government has realised that, in spite
of the ceasefire agreement, the chances of war are mounting.
The recent endeavour to acquire support from India through
the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) is essentially a
response to these apprehensions. On the contrary, for the
LTTE, achieving peace has never been the ultimate goal and,
consequently, it has never abandoned its policy of recruitment,
assassination, fundraising and military build-up.
In January 2004, President Kumaratunga had alleged, on the
basis of intelligence reports, that the LTTE had increased
its military strength during the truce period by recruiting
over 11,000 cadres. "The LTTE has increased its cadre by
three times from around seven thousand to over 18,000. Quite
a few of them are small children and forcible recruitment
was going on," she said. Adding substance to this statement
the New York-based Human Rights Watch, in its report in
November, accused the LTTE of continuing to enlist boys
and girls below the age of 18 years, since the Oslo-brokered
truce went into effect. "The ceasefire has brought an end
to the fighting but not to the Tamil Tigers' use of children
as soldiers," said Jo Becker, Children's Rights Advocacy
Director for Human Rights Watch and a co-author of the report.
The report, 'Living in Fear: Child Soldiers and the Tamil
Tigers in Sri Lanka,' included firsthand testimonies from
dozens of children from north-eastern Sri Lanka who had
been recruited since the cease-fire came into effect. Children
described rigorous and sometimes brutal military training,
including training with heavy weapons, bombs and landmines.
The LTTE used intimidation and threats to pressure Tamil
families in the island's North and the East to provide sons
and daughters for military service, the report said. When
families refused, their children were sometimes abducted
from their homes at night or forcibly recruited while walking
to school. Parents who resisted recruitment faced violence
or detention.
A spokesperson of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM)
said on October 9, that the LTTE has recruited 1,424 children,
out of whom 45 had been abducted during the 28-months of
truce ending August 31, while 359 adults were abducted during
the same period. Also from a total of 4,903 complaints against
the LTTE and 961 against the Government, 2,439 violations
against the LTTE and 111 against the Government of Sri Lanka
had been confirmed on the record, the SLMM spokesperson
added.
Significantly, Prabhakaran did not mention the 'Colonel'
Karuna rebellion in his speech, a deliberate ploy to undermine
an event that shook the LTTE apparatus in March 2004 and
threatened to split the outfit into two. Clearly, Prabhakaran
did not want to divert the attention and focus of his Tamil
listeners from the aim of 'Tamil Eelam', to an embarrassment
which threatened the unity of the group. Moreover, with
an annihilation campaign targeting the Karuna's rebel cadres
underway in the north and the east, Prabhakaran considers
the rebellion to have been 'dealt with'. The systematic
and open character of the annihilation campaign can be gauged
by the fact that, on October 31, the 'Batticaloa-Amparai
Political Office' of the LTTE issued leaflets with photographs
of known Karuna cadres, asking district residents to identify
and provide information that could lead to their elimination.
Apart from targeting the Karuna cadres, the LTTE has also
targeted every dissenting Tamil political voice. As in the
past, the LTTE has continued to assassinate
a number of senior Tamil political leaders
and their party workers in the Northern and Eastern part
of the country, especially belonging to the Eelam People's
Democratic Party (EPDP), throughout the period of the ceasefire.
Significantly, annual fatalities have been rising continuously
since the ceasefire, with a total of 15 persons killed in
2002; 59 in 2003; and 106 in 2004 (till November 28).
At no point of time through the ceasefire has the LTTE let
its guard down and Prabhakaran's war machine has never been
dormant, particularly its finance and military departments.
Since June 2004, there have been reports indicating that
the LTTE has started a special campaign to raise money in
Europe and North America, saying they are sick and tired
of the peace process. The Tamil diaspora in these countries,
especially Canada, France and England, have been approached
by LTTE functionaries, requesting them to donate for the
cause. The LTTE has been very successful throughout the
ceasefire in projecting two images, one for the international
audience and another for its adherents. As an intelligence
source notes, "the LTTE always speaks in two voices - one
for the international community, preferably in English,
and another for the Tamils living under its control, invariably
in Tamil."
The Sri Lankan Army has also been alarmed by the LTTE military
build-up, particularly around the Trincomalee harbour, and
has been crying itself hoarse. A complaint was lodged with
the SLMM, but the truce monitors have indicated that all
the LTTE installations visited were located well within
LTTE-controlled areas, and that they had found no indication
of a LTTE military build-up around the harbour. However,
on October 30, the SLMM's report was falsified, when the
Sri Lankan Navy destroyed a LTTE camp in the Palampatar
Santhiri jungles in Trincomalee, and a LTTE flag, two hand
grenades, a VHF signalling antenna, a 30 metre antenna cable,
notebooks with personal details and some weapons were recovered.
The LTTE and its 'chief' Prabhakaran are evidently not 'confused'
as to where the peace process is headed: "Whatever the real
reason, we can clearly and confidently say one thing; it
is apparent from the inconsistent and contradictory statements
made by President Kumaratunga that her Government is not
going to offer the Tamil people either an interim administration
or a permanent solution…..we cannot continue to be entrapped
in a political vacuum without an interim solution or a permanent
settlement, without a stable peace and without peace of
mind."
The LTTE has systematically exploited this 'political vacuum'
to stabilise and empower itself, both domestically and internationally,
a reality that cannot be overlooked by the Sinhalese leadership,
which would find itself on a relatively weaker footing,
were war to break out again.
Summertime? Reflections
on the Peace Process in J&K
Guest writer: Praveen Swami
New Delhi Chief of Bureau, Frontline Magazine; currently
Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington,
DC.
Audiences schooled in Hindi film, if asked to watch current
events in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), would have little doubt
where the script was headed: the final scenes of tearful
reconciliation, followed by an orgy of ecstatic dancing,
could safely be predicted to be just a few minutes away.
Two summers ago, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee promised
an audience at the Sher-i-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar that
his new peace initiative would soon bring peace to J&K.
Eighteen months and a general election on, another Prime
Minister seems to have set about the unusually munificent
exercise of turning his predecessor into a prophet. Indian
newspapers are full of news about troop withdrawals; dialogue
with Pakistan, both back-channel and formal, is in full
flow; violence has declined to levels which, though nowhere
near what could be described as normal, are certainly a
relief to all those who have had to live with one of the
world's most brutal conflicts for a decade and a half.
Several elements of the current situation are indeed positive.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has contained the damage inflicted
by Prime Minister Vajpayee's eminence grise, Brajesh
Mishra, left some in Pakistan believing that India would
consider territorial concessions. Then, General Pervez Musharraf's
'7 regions' proposal suggests he may be preparing audiences
in Pakistan for sub-optimal outcomes. Pakistan has been
pushing variants of General Musharraf's proposals - which
in their bare-bones form envision a sundering of J&K along
its ethnic-communal fault lines - for years. As such, it
is unlikely that India's out-of-hand rejection of the latest
proposals would have been unanticipated in Pakistan. Nonetheless,
the 'scheme' was articulated. Finally, violence has been
in steady decline since 2001 [see
data].
Part of this de-escalation may be attributed to the success
of Indian coercive diplomacy, and to the fencing of the
border. Nevertheless, the remarkable drop this year in the
numbers of foreign terrorists killed suggests that Musharraf
has at least part-delivered on his 2002 promise to end cross-border
terrorism. India, having ruled out solutions involving the
redrawing of borders, will now seek to achieve two objectives:
try and secure the actual dismantling of the terrorist infrastructure
in Pakistan - the winding up of camps, stripping of assets
and demobilisation of cadre; more important, search for
partners among secessionists, with whom it can give form
to its stated objective, a peace which involves greater
federal autonomy in J&K.
Two questions are key to the success of these twin objectives.
First, it is still far from clear just why Pakistan will
be willing to go along with a scheme that gives it little
- unless General Musharraf has, at last, come to believe
that state support for jihad undermines his own country.
Second, there appears to be no clear notion of what incentives
there might be for secessionists within J&K to go along
with the scheme - and, indeed, whether they can sell it
to their constituents without seeing them defect en bloc
to mainstream political parties. As such, the new order
seems to have no more cogent a paradigm for peacemaking
than existed in the mid-1990s: bringing the secessionists
on board into mainstream politics, through a process of
negotiation, wheedling, cajoling and the provision of incentives.
History holds out some interesting lessons for the prospects
of this line of engagement, which in times less polite than
our own used to be called bribery, flattery and subornment.
Hours before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived at the
Sher-i-Kashmir International Cricket Stadium to deliver
his first public address in Srinagar, security forces gunned
down two terrorists just a few hundred metres from the venue.
The man with overall responsibility for the counter-terrorist
operation, Kashmir-range Inspector General of Police Javed
Ahmed Makhdoomi, had reason to congratulate himself on the
success of the forces under his command: armed with assault
rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, the terrorists
could conceivably have sparked off the next India-Pakistan
war had their attack succeeded.
Not all that many years ago, Makhdoomi - and a welter of
other establishment figures in J&K - were on the other end
of the war. In 1966, Inspector General of Police Surendra
Nath had authored a top-secret report on the Master Cell
and its subsidiaries, a Pakistan-backed terrorist group
that carried out an extensive campaign of sabotage in the
build-up to the 1965 war. An encyclopaedic study of Pakistani
sub-conventional warfare during the period, Nath's report
named Makhdoomi, along with current J&K Law Minister Muzaffar
Beigh, the late National Conference Cabinet Minister Bashir
Kitchloo and senior secessionist politician Fazl-ul-Haq
Qureshi, as low-level collaborators in the Master Cell's
activities - along with several others, who acquired less
eminence in public life.
Without addressing the question of whether or not the four
men were actually guilty of the allegations levelled at
them by Nath - who died in a 1994 air crash, while serving
as Governor of Punjab - the fact is the group represents
a remarkable segment of the political spectrum. All four,
by Nath's account, were sympathetic to the secessionist
position as young men; only Qureshi now stands on that end
of the fence - and even he endorsed the abortive ceasefire
between Indian forces and the Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin in 2000-2001.
Both Kitchloo and Baig ended up as targets for terrorist
attack; Makhdoomi now attempts to prevent such attacks,
and to apprehend or kill their perpetrators. All were beneficiaries
of a political system that sought rapprochement, rather
than the perpetual exile or neutralisation of those who
transgressed its limits.
Such journeys have been common in J&K - Sheikh Mohammad
Abdullah himself, it may be recalled, was suspected of conspiring
with Pakistan - and their trajectory has had a profound
impact on official Indian thinking. "Pakistan's attempt
to build up a movement of espionage and subversion inside
the State of Jammu and Kashmir continues to be an unabated
and undeterred menace," a senior politician wrote, in one
of the most lucid expressions of official thinking, "While
the administrative machinery in general and law and order
machinery in particular have to continue to be vigilant
and alert we also have to take an urgent political view
of the situation. In Kashmir, we have to seek and strive
for the emotional enlistment [sic] of the people with the
rest of the country".
Either Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee could have written these words. Their author
was, in fact, then J&K Home Minister D.P. Dhar, commenting
on the covert cells Nath had uncovered over three decades
ago. The journeys that key figures have taken since then
also point to some of the limitations of a certain kind
of peacemaking: in essence the search for accommodation
of secessionists within the Indian political system. Past
records show that such accommodation can indeed be brought
about, but also underlines its limitations. The accommodation
of elements of the 1965 terrorist cells did not, after all,
stop the rise of al-Fateh in Kashmir in 1970, the subsequent
rise of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF),
or the massive eruption of jihadi violence in the
late 1980s.
If, as some observers have suggested, the Government of
India intends to begin a serious dialogue on widening federal
autonomy for J&K in coming months or years, these simple
realities must be borne in mind. If accommodation is reached
with some centrist factions of secessionists, within or
outside the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC),
Islamists will, without doubt, reject it - and emerge with
renewed legitimacy as the 'authentic' voices of the anti-India
jihad. Terrorist groups and Pakistan, for their part,
have no reason to accept a deal of the kind India has in
mind; both know variants of the autonomy option have been
on the table for over a decade. This is precisely why both
the Islamist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the United
Jihad Council have rubbished both Indian troop withdrawal
and the dialogue process: confidence building is not a game
they have any interest in playing.
Peacemaking in J&K, we must understand, is not just an abstract
negotiation, with all parties committed to discovering a
'rational' outcome through a process of pure reason. It
is about, among other things, fundamentally irreconcilable
ideas of the basis of statehood and the still far-from-spent
forces that led to India's Partition. It is, for jihadi
formations and elements in Pakistan's establishment,
merely part of a larger war between Islam and unbelief.
And it is, for many actors, an enterprise: a tawdry
business in which India's Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW)
plays Daddy, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
plays Mamma, mediators sing lullabies and the little baby
just cries a little to get a great deal of attention. When
called on to deliver, centrist secessionists can always
claim either to be coerced by terrorists, or place impossible
conditions on India - and thus seek further increments.
"Magic", said the illusionist P.C. Sorcar, "evolves in the
mind of the spectators. When they fail to build a cognisable
explanation of the secrets of magic, they submit themselves
to the world of fantasy and sorcery." In truth, there is
no such thing as 'the Kashmir problem'; there are, instead,
a maze of Kashmir problems each of such complexity that
magical solutions appear the only way forward. Dialogue,
however, is a process; it guarantees no particular outcome;
crucially, it can just as easily create crises as avert
them. However well-intentioned either General Pervez Musharraf
or Prime Minister Manmohan Singh might be - there is no-public
domain material that gives insight into the inner recesses
of their minds and hearts - each step forward towards peace
might see the objective, ever elusive, recede that little
bit further away.
None of this, of course, is reason not to walk the pathways
to peace; just to step forward with the greatest possible
caution.
Northeast: The Bargain Basement
Wasbir Hussain
Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New
Delhi; Consulting Editor, The Sentinel, Guwahati
Separatist rebel groups in India's Northeast, except for
those in the state of Manipur, have generally entered the
'talk mode', keen or forced by circumstances to try and
evolve acceptable solutions to their demands through political
dialogue with New Delhi. The recent past has, in fact, seen
something of a chain reaction, with one insurgent group
after another expressing its willingness to talk peace,
cornering other recalcitrant allies and foes, leading to
snapping of strategic alliances among many militant groups,
and even forcing several rebel armies onto the road to negotiation.
Within less than two months after it responded positively
to Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's call for a ceasefire
ahead of possible peace talks, a group of top leaders belonging
to the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB)
were reported to have traveled to New Delhi over the past
few days, to hold talks with officials of the Ministry of
Home Affairs (MHA). Reports indicate that these militant
leaders were charting out the modalities of a formal ceasefire
agreement between the rebel group and the Government, as
well as other details, such as the setting up and location
of designated camps where their cadres could be lodged safely
till the time the talks lead to an acceptable solution.
Published reports on November 29, 2004, quoted NDFB 'president'
Ranjan Daimary alias D.R. Nabla as saying his group was
ready for unconditional talks with the Indian Government
on the basis of their 'ideology and principles.' But, rebel
groups are known for hard bargaining with Government negotiators,
and the NDFB, too, won't be an exception. This was indicated
by the NDFB chief when he said they were seeking a Bodoland
which is going to be a 'heterogeneous State.'
Talks with the NDFB will lead to more problems than solutions,
in the sense that New Delhi has already signed a deal with
a rival Bodo rebel group, the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT)
in February 2003. According to the terms of that agreement,
the Bodos were granted a Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC),
a politico-administrative structure with a 40-member elective
body. What, now, could the NDFB get by way of concessions
to persuade it to give up its demand for an independent
homeland? Moroever, the chances of an open confrontation
within the Bodo society are very significant, since both
the NDFB and the 'disbanded' BLT would seek to occupy the
same political space.
Within the theatre of insurgency in Assam, at least, the
successful clinching of the agreement with the BLT in 2003
has led to a chain reaction. In addition to the NDFB, several
rag-tag rebel groups active in the southern Assam hill districts
of Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills are currently holding
formal or informal talks with the authorities. This has
also impacted on the proscribed United Liberation Front
of Asom (ULFA)
- by far the State's most powerful insurgent group with
a huge fire-power and established trans-border linkages.
Developments over the past weeks indicate that ULFA is now
looking for an honourable way to begin negotiations with
New Delhi. The group began by withdrawing two of its three
preconditions for peace talks with the Indian Government
- talks outside India and talks under the supervision of
the United Nations. The only condition that ULFA is still
sticking to is that its core demand of 'sovereignty' must
be on the agenda of discussions as and when the talks with
New Delhi begin.
ULFA's decision to endorse popular Assamese novelist Dr.
Indira Goswami's efforts to act as a peace facilitator also
indicates that the rebel group has at last come around to
the need for negotiations as a tool for a solution to their
demands. This is the first time since its formation on April
7, 1979 - in a quest to establish a 'sovereign, Socialist
Assam' - that ULFA has backed someone who has taken up the
role of mediator. Dr. Goswami has already met Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and handed him a written 'peace appeal'.
A response from the Prime Minister is now awaited before
the peace process could move further forward.
The ULFA has also demonstrated that it takes Dr. Goswami
seriously and was even ready to put violent activities on
hold to honour her call. On November 25, 2004, the ULFA
carried out four separate grenade and bomb attacks in eastern
Assam, injuring six people, blowing up a crude pipeline,
and bringing down an abandoned security tower within an
Indian Air Force complex at Jorhat. Within 48 hours, Dr.
Goswami told the media that ULFA 'commander-in-chief' Paresh
Baruah had telephoned her in connection with the peace effort,
and that she had urged him to put a halt to all violent
activities until a response from New Delhi is received.
ULFA has marked November 28 as 'betrayal day', commemorating
the launch of the first organized military offensive against
them - Operation Bajrang in 1990 - with a string of violent
attacks each year. This time round, there has been no violence
till noon of November 29, 2004 in the wake of Dr Goswami's
appeal to them to exercise restraint.
ULFA, of course, continues to jockey for a favourable negotiating
position, and has sought to question and confront present
Government responses. After the Prime Minister made it clear
on November 22, 2004, that "Assam was an integral part of
India and there can be no doubts on that," ULFA once again
reiterated its demand for a plebiscite on the issue of a
'sovereign Assam'. "The Indian government has said it was
not prepared to discuss our core demand for sovereignty
during possible peace negotiations. Let them then hold a
plebiscite in Assam and we shall abide by the verdict of
the masses," ULFA 'Chairman' Arabinda Rajkhowa said in a
statement e-mailed to journalists in Guwahati on November
27. He added: "The solution to Assam's problem lies with
the people. They should be allowed to decide whether they
want an independent homeland or not."
If ULFA is trying to put pressure on New Delhi to come up
with a more 'acceptable' set of alternatives which could
constitute a basis for honourable engagement in a peace
process with the Indian Government, the Isak-Muivah faction
of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM)
is also acting tough. The outfit, engaged in peace talks
with New Delhi since August 1997, suddenly called off its
scheduled visit to India beginning November 28, 2004, accusing
Government agencies of arming one rival Naga group and trying
to promote another. K. Padmanabhaiah, New Delhi's chief
interlocutor for the Naga peace talks, however, denied these
allegations and told this writer "We are neither arming
any Naga rebel group opposed to the NSCN-IM nor showing
any undue interest in any other Naga rebel outfit. These
doubts need to be cleared through direct talks and we can
investigate the charges if specific evidence is provided
to us by the NSCN-IM."
The NSCN-IM came up with the charge that Government agencies
had started arming the rival Naga National Council (NNC)
with self-loading rifles, and airlifting leaders of the
NSCN faction headed by S.S. Khaplang (NSCN-K)
to New Delhi, within about a fortnight of New Delhi and
the NSCN-IM issuing a joint statement in Bangkok regarding
the India visit. This is certainly extraordinary, and it
is difficult to see why the Government or a government agency
would abruptly begin to arm or support rival groups, precisely
at a time when top rebel leaders of the principal faction
in negotiations with the Government were due to arrive at
Delhi for talks. These talks, moreover, were to be held
on the invitation of none less than the Prime Minister.
This, perhaps, is the way insurgent politics moves.
There can, however, be no doubt that negotiations are increasingly
coming centre-stage in the political strategy of the rebels
in India's Northeast. A number of factors have contributed
to this trend. The transformed global environment and declining
international 'tolerance' for violent anti-state groups,
particularly within democratic societies, has made insurgency
more difficult to sustain. Cooperative action by at least
some countries in the neighbourhood has denied the insurgents
important safe havens - Bhutan expelled all militants of
the ULFA, NDFB and Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO)
in military operations in December 2003. Current reports
now suggest that the Myanmar Army has launched coordinated
operations with Indian Forces to clear insurgent camps on
Myanmarese soil. This leaves Bangladesh as the only surviving
safe haven in the region. Counter-terrorism operations in
parts of the Northeast have also secured particular successes,
even as Governments have framed liberal 'surrender policies'
and vigorously promoted various peace initiatives. Moreover,
as the NSCN case illustrates, a radical political agenda
and sizeable armed forces can gainfully be sustained by
insurgent groups even during peace talks. Negotiations,
it seems, are a 'win-win' option for the beleaguered extremist
factions in the Northeast.
|
Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts
in South Asia
November
22-28, 2004
  |
Civilian
|
Security
Force Personnel
|
Terrorist
|
Total
|
BANGLADESH
|
2
|
0
|
13
|
15
|
INDIA
|
Assam
|
0
|
0
|
4
|
4
|
Jammu
&
Kashmir
|
4
|
4
|
11
|
19
|
Manipur
|
4
|
1
|
0
|
5
|
Nagaland
|
1
|
0
|
5
|
6
|
Tripura
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
Total (INDIA)
|
10
|
5
|
21
|
36
|
NEPAL
|
3
|
9
|
18
|
30
|
PAKISTAN
|
2
|
0
|
20
|
22
|
SRI LANKA
|
0
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Provisional
data compiled from English language media sources.
|
INDIA
India
rules
out
Pakistan's
proposal
to
redraw
borders
in
Jammu
and
Kashmir:
Foreign
Secretary
Shyam
Saran,
on
November
24,
stated
that
India
has
conveyed
to
Pakistan
its
willingness
to
"look
at
various
options
based
on
ground
realities"
to
resolve
the
Kashmir
issue,
but
ruled
out
redrawing
of
the
country's
borders.
The
two
neighbours,
however,
agreed
to
launch
the
Srinagar-Muzaffarabad
bus
service
"as
early
as
possible"
and
take
their
composite
dialogue
process
forward.
At
his
maiden
meeting
with
Pakistan
Premier
Shaukat
Aziz,
Prime
Minister
Manmohan
Singh
reassured
him
about
India's
commitment
to
resolve
all
outstanding
issues
with
Islamabad,
including
Jammu
and
Kashmir,
in
a
serious
and
sustained
manner,
Foreign
Secretary
Shyam
Saran
added.
The
Hindu,
November
25,
2004
NEPAL
Government's
peace
talks
offer
is
a
'conspiracy',
says
CPN-M
'Chairman'
Prachanda:
In
a
statement
issued
on
November
27,
Communist
Party
of
Nepal-Maoist
(CPN
-M)
'Chairman',
Pushpa
Kamal
Dahal
aka
Prachanda,
rejected
the
peace
talks
offered
by
the
Government
and
said
that
the
government's
move
looked
something
like
a
'conspiracy'.
He
also
alleged
that
the
government
had
not
yet
created
a
favourable
atmosphere
for
peace
talks
and
setting
deadline
had
further
diminished
the
prospects
of
talks.
However,
Prachanda
reiterated
that
his
party
was
ready
for
peace
talks
with
credible
international
mediation.
Nepal
News,
November
28,
2004
Prime
Minister
Deuba
issues
deadline
to
Maoists
for
peace
talks:
On
November
25,
issuing
a
statement,
Prime
Minister
Sher
Bahadur
Deuba
asked
the
Communist
Party
of
Nepal
-
Maoist
(CPN
-M)
to
agree
for
peace
talks
before
January
13,
2005.
The
announcement
came
following
a
meeting
of
the
Council
of
Ministers
that
endorsed
the
recommendation
of
the
High-level
Peace
Committee
(HPC).
"The
Government
is
eager
to
find
a
political
way
out
through
dialogues,
but
if
the
Maoists
don't
pay
heed
to
our
repeated
calls
for
talks,
the
Government
will
move
ahead
with
the
election
process,"
Prime
Minister
Sher
Bahadur
Deuba
said
in
a
press
meet
organized
at
Singhadurbar.
Nepal
News,
November
26,
2004
PAKISTAN
Lt-Gen
Safdar
Hussain
announces
withdrawal
of
troops
from
Wana:
Corps
Commander
Lt-General
Safdar
Hussain
while
speaking
at
a
jirga
of
the
Ahmadzai
Wazir
tribe
at
Governor
House
in
Peshawar
on
November
26,
announced
the
withdrawal
of
troops
and
removal
of
check
posts
from
all
parts
of
the
Wana
subdivision
of
the
South
Waziristan
tribal
region.
According
to
an
official
handout,
Governor
Syed
Iftikhar
Hussain
Shah,
Inspector
General
of
the
Frontier
Corps
(FC),
Tariq
Masood,
and
senior
officials
were
present
on
the
occasion,
along
with
about
400
elders
and
maliks
and
three
militants,
Maulvi
Abbas,
Maulvi
Javed
and
Maulvi
Abdul
Aziz,
who
recently
accepted
a
Government
amnesty.
"Peace
has
been
restored
in
Wana
and
now
the
military
will
not
use
force
in
any
part
of
the
area,"
Safdar
Hussein
declared.
Dawn,
The
News,
November
27,
2004
20
militants
killed
in
South
Waziristan:
An
Inter-Services
Public
Relations
(ISPR)
statement
issued
on
November
22
said
that
troops
have
killed
20
militants
in
raids
on
a
seminary
and
a
camp
in
South
Waziristan
as
part
of
ongoing
operations
against
Al
Qaeda-linked
fighters.
Eight
people
were
killed
at
the
seminary
in
Lalejai
area,
a
military
spokesman
said
in
the
statement.
"In
the
Lalejai
area,
Maulvi
Bashir's
Madrassah
(seminary)
had
been
serving
as
a
hub
of
terrorist
activities
from
where
miscreants
had
been
launching
frequent
attacks
against
security
forces
and
the
civil
population."
Also,
12
terrorists
were
killed
in
a
'hand-to-hand'
fight
with
security
forces
in
Karam-Manzai
Chund
Khel
area,
where
terrorists
had
made
the
local
population
hostage,
the
statement
added.
The
News,
Dawn,
November
23,
2004
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