India stamps on Myanmar's
rebels By Bibhu Prasad Routray
Indian police in Mizoram claim to have
destroyed one of the largest Myanmar rebel
bases in India, deep in the mountainous jungles of
Mizoram state. State police chief Lalngheta Sailo
claimed that roughly 200 guerrillas and supporters
living in the Chin National Front (CNF) camp near
the border with Myanmar fled before the attack and
the vacant camp was demolished.
Police say
they also arrested 50 Chin drug traffickers,
criminals and trespassers from various locations,
including capital Aizawl.
State police
sources also claimed to have recovered arms hidden
in a remote area near Vaphai village in
Champhai district near the India-Myanmar border.
The arms had reportedly been looted by the Chin
Integration Army (CIA) led by Ngun Uk Lian in
December 2004 from the Myanmarese army in the
border town of Falang in Chin state.
These
raids were part of "Operation Hailstorm" targeting
the Myanmar rebels, a move largely seen as a
fall-out of the
memorandum of understanding
signed between Myanmar and New Delhi during the
October 2004 visit of the chairman, State Peace
and Development Council, Senior General Than Shwe.
The Myanmar army had launched operations
against the infrastructure of Indian terrorists in
the Sagaing division in late 2004, most notably
against that of Naga and Manipuri groups. The
current raids in Mizoram are part of India's
payback package.
Results of the army
operations in Myanmar and their impact on the
capabilities of the northeastern militants are not
known. However, it is evident that the recent
Indian moves against the foreign rebel groups may
end up providing solutions to a host of problems
afflicting Mizoram, in addition to gratifying the
men in uniform in Myanmar.
The recent
attacks on the Chin rebels were not the first of
their nature; similar attacks took place in
January 1996, when some 150 Assam Rifles personnel
targeted one of the CNF's camps. The CNF cadres
offered no resistance and fled. The camp and
nearby houses were burnt down.
Mizoram
shares a 404-kilometer open and largely
unmonitored border with Myanmar, and has
traditionally been a favored refuge for the
predominantly Christian Chins, who have been
demanding autonomy for the Chin state in the
north-western part of Myanmar.
They are
bitterly opposed to the conversion drive by the
military rulers, who want them to adopt Buddhism.
When Chin refugees started flowing into Mizoram
following the 1988 military crackdown in Myanmar,
the Mizos – themselves emerging from a protracted
war with India and, more importantly, sharing an
ethnic bond with the Chins – played magnanimous
hosts.
New Delhi, oscillating between its
age-old support to the pro-democracy movement in
Myanmar and a new-found realism that sought to
engage with the powers-that-be, chose not to act.
Over the years, the eastern part of Mizoram as
well as Aizawl became host to about 40,000 Chins,
and it is not surprising that the fleeing
population also included cadres of militant
outfits like the CNF, for whom Indian territory
was a "safe zone".
The CNF was created
March 20, 1988, on an agenda "to topple the
chauvinist military dictatorship, to secure
national rights and to uplift the nation's
economic and social conditions". The Chin National
Army (CNA), which is the armed wing of the CNF,
has at present an estimated strength of about
800-1,000 cadres, including some 500 actual
combatants.
In 1989, CNA cadres reportedly
received their first arms training at the
headquarters of the Kachin Independence
Organization in Kachin state. Nearly 70 trained
cadres of the CNA entered the Chin state in 1991,
and the group experienced an initial period of
success and expansion.
CNF's military
capacities, however, declined over the years and
by about 1997 it was forced to move its base into
southern Mizoram. Its headquarters, Camp Victoria,
was established some time in 2002. Significantly,
the camp, situated in dense forests, is accessible
by a land route only from the Myanmar side.
Until 1992, CNF/CNA was led by "president"
John No Than Kap. John, facing the heat of the
military junta, fled to India, but was
subsequently deported to Myanmar, where he
surrendered to the authorities. In the mid 1990s,
the outfit executed several terrorist attacks,
mostly from its base in India, in the townships of
Haka and Falang in Chin state.
However,
over the years, CNF/CNA, led by "chairman" Thomas
Thang Nou, has turned into an
intelligence-gathering resistance group, with very
limited capacities to organize armed attacks
against Myanmar interests, though intermittent
raids continue.
Unconfirmed reports suggest
that in July 2002 an ambush on a motor vehicle by
the CNA in Haimual township along the
India-Myanmar border led to the death of two
Myanmar soldiers. In addition, the CNF/CNA, due
to their locational advantage, had managed to
remain outside the "ceasefire agreement", which
the military regime had used to force a majority
of rebel groups into submission.
The
CNF/CNA has survived by entering into the
production and sale of narcotics, teakwood and
precious stones. It had developed an extensive
network for drugs and arms trafficking in the
region, with links to the arms bazaars in Laos,
Cambodia and Thailand, catering to the needs of
militant groups operating in India's northeast.
According to a Ministry of Home Affairs report in
2000, the CNF/CNA had also started collecting
"taxes" from the businessmen and transporters in
the eastern part of Mizoram.
The CIA (Chin
Integration Army), a renegade faction of the CNA,
is believed to have come into existence in 1999
though till early 2004 it continued to operate
under the CNA name. The group was involved in a
number of attacks on cross-border traders,
travellers and local people, and was also involved
in the arms and drugs trade.
Its leader,
Ngun Uk Lian, served a prison term in Mizoram for
crimes including murder, drug smuggling and armed
robbery. After being released on bail in 2003,
Ngun Uk Lian reentered the world of crime and
militancy. On December 11, 2004, about 15 CIA
militants ambushed an Assam Rifles patrol, killing
an officer. The CIA also lost three of its cadres
in the attack, in which the terrorists were armed
with AK-47 assault rifles and US-made M-16s.
The CNA and the CIA have exploited their
locational advantages to the maximum, functioning
with a high measure of autonomy in territories
with extremely low population densities and lower
security force presence. The district headquarters
in Champhai, the district that hosted the Chin
rebel camps, is just 194 kilometers away from
capital Aizawl, but the distance takes about eight
hours to traverse because of the precipitous
terrain and a back-breaking road The problem of
law and order in the border areas is managed by
the Assam Rifles (AR), not the state police, and
the AR maintains, at best, a token presence in the
area.
The Mizoram government now appears
to be determined to act against the Myanmar
rebels. On August 24, chief minister Zoramthanga
declared, "Our government has already started
identifying illegal foreign settlers in Mizoram
and would be deporting them as soon as possible."
It is, however, difficult to understand
why it took nearly six months and prodding by the
Myanmar authorities for Aizawl and New Delhi to
react, even after an incident in which one of its
army officers was killed. India's long silence on
the continuing drugs and arms trade by these
groups, which has continued for years, is even
more baffling. Nor is it comprehensible why India
chose to remain passive, despite the growth of the
Myanmar terrorist and criminal infrastructure
inside its own territory, when it continues to
complain about other countries that provide
safe-havens to terrorists.
One difficulty,
of course, is the ability of the rebels to flee
across the border before an impending raid, which
makes it impossible to deliver a final blow
against the Chin rebels on Indian territory.
Another problem is politics. Myanmar has used the
presence of the northeastern rebels on its
territory as a bargaining chip in its dealings
with India, especially on the democracy issue.
In 1995, it suddenly called off the joint
"Operation Golden Bird", after India conferred the
prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Award for
International Understanding on Aung San Suu Kyi .
Even after its numerous military raids in the
area, commencing in the late 1980s, the Sagaing
division remains a favorite hunting ground for the
Indian rebels, and India has pursued an implicit
policy of quid pro quo.
Evidently,
joint action between the forces of the two
countries will be necessary if any effective
operations are to be executed against the
terrorists and criminals who infest the border
areas, and these would impact immediately and
directly not only on the Myanmar rebels, but
also on the various rebel groups operating in
India's northeast who secure safe havens in the
jungles across the Myanmar border.
Bibhu Prasad Routray, research
fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, a
non-profit society set up in 1997 in New Delhi
committed to the evaluation and resolution of
problems of internal security in South Asia.
(Published with permission from the
South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism
Portal
)
