India presses Myanmar over
insurgents By Sudha
Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Last week's
interior-secretary-level talks between India and
Myanmar are said to have left Indian officials
smiling. While both sides are reluctant to
elaborate on details of the counterinsurgency
cooperation that was agreed on, it appears that
Myanmar has said it will look into an Indian
proposal to crack down on anti-India insurgents
operating from its soil.
It was the 12th
in a series of talks of its kind. At it India and
Myanmar agreed to set up a mechanism to strengthen
bilateral cooperation on security-related issues,
drug trafficking and border
management. At a meeting in
Yangon last October, the two sides had agreed to
share intelligence.
An institutional
mechanism has now been set up to take further this
sharing of intelligence to tackle cross-border
insurgency and related problems such as drug
trafficking, gun-running and other criminal
activity. The two sides have also agreed to joint
interrogation of those lodged in each other's
jails who were engaging in activities that
threaten the security of the two countries.
In the run-up to last week's meeting,
reports in the Indian media indicated that Indian
officials were going to press Myanmar to launch an
operation similar to the one carried out in 2003
by Bhutan against anti-India insurgents taking
sanctuary there. In December 2003, the Bhutanese
security forces launched "Operation All Clear".
They cracked down on some 30 camps of Indian
insurgent groups, such as the United Liberation
Front of Assam (ULFA), the National Democratic
Front of Bodoland, and the Kamtapur Liberation
Organization.
These are insurgent groups
operating in India's conflict-ridden northeast
that had set up training camps in Bhutan. Scores
of insurgents were killed or taken into custody
during the military operations and some were
handed over to the Indian security forces. But
many of the insurgents relocated to Bangladesh and
Myanmar. Bases were simply shifted to these
countries.
Delhi has been hoping that
Yangon will launch similar military operations to
flush out anti-India insurgent outfits that have
set up camps on Myanmar's soil. India and Myanmar
share a porous 1,643-kilometer-long border, and
insurgents from the Indian states of Nagaland,
Manipur, Assam and Tripura routinely cross it for
sanctuary and training in camps they have set up
in Myanmar.
New Delhi has repeatedly
raised concerns regarding the existence of
anti-India insurgent camps operating on Myanmar's
side of the border. In fact, getting the
cooperation of Myanmar's security forces was among
the main reasons behind the shift in India's
policy from all-out support of the pro-democracy
movement to courting the junta that rules Myanmar.
Delhi has received limited cooperation
from Myanmar from time to time in
counterinsurgency operations. In 1995, for
instance, Myanmar and India launched "Operation
Golden Bird", a pincer attack that trapped scores
of Indian insurgents transiting through Myanmar
into India. In December 2001, scores of UNLF
cadres, including some top leaders, were arrested
by Myanmar's army.
In the past, the
security forces of the two countries have
co-coordinated counterinsurgency operations. When
India launches operations against insurgents on
its soil, it has alerted Myanmar's forces, who
then step up combing operations in areas bordering
India to capture fleeing insurgents.
When
Myanmar smashed ULFA camps along the Chindwin
River in 2004, India sealed its border in that
area. India cracked down on Chin rebels last year
and removed the headquarters of the Chin National
Front in Mizoram. In January this year, the armies
of Myanmar and India coordinated operations
against the National Socialist Council of
Nagaland-Khaplang. India has also provided
Myanmar's security forces with military equipment
and training to fight the insurgents.
But
analysts say that cooperation from Myanmar's
military in cracking down on Indian insurgents
operating from its soils has been erratic. Furious
with India for honoring Aung San Suu Kyi, leader
of the movement for democracy in Myanmar, with the
Nehru Award for International Understanding, the
military released many insurgents captured during
Operation Golden Bird. UNLF cadres were released
within months of their capture in 2001 when India
alleged that two Pakistani nuclear scientists with
suspected links to al-Qaeda were in Myanmar.
According to Soe Myint, editor-in-chief of
Mizzima News and author of Burma File: A
Question of Democracy, Myanmar's military has
"not done much" to crack down on Indian insurgents
on its soil. They are operating freely in the
Sagaing division and in Naga areas in Myanmar, he
says.
Indian intelligence officials say
that while Myanmar has expressed a willingness to
remove insurgent camps on its territory, there is
a section among its military that continues to
support these camps as they stand to gain from the
lucrative arms-narcotics trade that these
insurgents are engaged in. "Myanmar is doing
something about India's concerns but not enough,"
is the general reading in India's Home Ministry of
Yangon's help in countering insurgency.
Indian officials are now saying they want
Myanmar to do more to address India's concerns
with regard to anti-India insurgents with bases in
Myanmar. Soe Myint says these concerns have
acquired a new urgency with the recent attack on
members of the Assam Rifles (an Indian
paramilitary force) in the border town of Moreh,
when the Indian insurgents who carried out the
attack fled back to camps in Myanmar.
Indian intelligence sources say that
Myanmar is likely to carry out the Bhutan-style
crackdowns on Indian insurgents operating on its
soil, but these are unlikely to be as
comprehensive as those carried out by Bhutan. The
relationship between India and Myanmar's military
junta cannot be put in the same category as that
between Delhi and Thimphu, they point out, adding
that even Bhutan has been negligent about
follow-up action against the Indian insurgents on
its soil resulting in the re-emergence of their
bases in southern parts of the country. The
crackdown on the insurgents could be carried out
this winter.
India's counterinsurgency
operations in the northeast cannot succeed unless
its neighbors deny insurgents sanctuary on their
soil. Bhutan has cooperated with India in this
regard. Bangladesh denies that there are Indian
insurgent camps on its soil despite Delhi
providing it with evidence on the location of
these camps.
Myanmar's cooperation falls
between that provided to India by Bhutan and
Bangladesh. Unlike Bangladesh, it admits there are
training camps on its soil but has yet to crack
down on them as did Bhutan three years ago. This
winter Delhi will be hoping that Yangon will
follow Thimphu's example.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent
journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.
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