A
two-decade long insurgency in Mizoram ended in 1986, and peace has held since. Occasional incidents, principally the result of overflows from neighbouring states, or of unresolved issues relating to refugees populations, still occur.
According to the SATP database, Mizoram recorded a single fatality (civilian killed by the Assam-based UDLA) in 2011. No fatalities have yet been recorded in 2012. There were no fatalities in the state in 2010, and one in 2009.
The important militant groups with a presence in Mizoram include the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF), which surrendered in 2005, and is currently in negotiations with the Mizoram government for the repatriation of Bru refugees, currently housed in camps in Tripura; and the Hmar People's Convention-Democracy (HPC-D), which entered into a Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement with the government on November 11, 2010 for six months. The SoO expired on May 11, 2011, and was not extended by the Mizoram government on the grounds that the HPC-D was violating SoO ground rules. The HPC-D continues to demand the formation of separate Hmar Territorial Council in the north eastern part of the state. Peace talks with the outfit were supposed to start in January 2011. However, the government has refused to resume talks on the grounds that HPC-D has involved a foreigner, a US citizen (Rochunga Pudaite), as interlocutor.
T
here is no major indigenous insurgency in Arunachal Pradesh, though an 'overflow' from neighbouring Nagaland has resulted in regular fatalities in this state as well. According to SATP data, the state recorded 41 fatalities during the year 2011, up from none in 2010. All 41 fatalities were militants. The state recorded three major incidence of killing during the year. There were no militancy-related fatalities in the state in 2010, while 2009 had recorded nine militant fatalities.
Arunachal Pradesh has already recorded two (militant) fatalities in 2012. Significant groups operating in the state include the NSCN-IM and NSCN-K, as well as the Arunachal Naga Liberation Front (ANLF), which was formed in May 2010. The ANLF, however, formally merged with NSCN-K on June 19, 2011.
T
he broad positive trends in the security environment in India's Northeast are, however, tainted by a number of emerging factors, including a number of crucial and potentially disruptive 'externalities'. For one, an Intelligence Bureau (IB) note reportedly indicates that the idea of a Strategic United Front, designed to bring a number of terrorist groups in the Northeast and in Jammu & Kashmir under a single umbrella, has been chalked out by China, to launch what has been described as 'synergised attacks in India'. The Manipur-based People's Liberation Army (PLA) has elaborated this vision of evolving a 'Strong United Front', along with CPI-Maoist and Kashmiri militants, backed by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and China. The PLA has claimed that the 'United Front' so formed had been promised 'Chinese support', but only after the militant conglomerate had secured cadre strength of 'over 30,000'. The PLA also declared that it would extend support to Myanmar's insurgent groups in days to come.
Militant groups in India's Northeast have also created linkages with other insurgent groupings in India, most prominently the CPI-Maoist. The CPI-Maoist has already signed an agreement with the PLA of Manipur.
Sources also indicate that the ULFA-ATF was imparting arms training to Maoist cadres in the forests of Arunachal Pradesh. An MHA internal note warned of a new 'Red Terror Corridor' along the Assam-Arunachal border, and indicated that the Maoists had started making extortion demands on local villagers in this area. In a March 14, 2012, report, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) confirmed that the CPI-Maoist was making inroads into Northeastern states. Reports also indicate that PLA cadres had travelled to Jharkhand to provide weapons' training to Maoist recruits there.
T
he most significant, potentially destabilizing, externalities, however, include accelerating foreign interventions in the region, particularly by China and Pakistan. Pakistan has, of course, supported insurgencies in India's Northeast since the commencement of the first Naga insurgency in 1951, providing insurgent groups safe-haven and support in what was then East Pakistan. After the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, this support became difficult for a brief period, till the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in August 1975 restored certain pro-Pakistan element to influence in Bangladesh. Over time, a strong alliance was built up between Pakistan's ISI and Bangladesh's Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), and full support was restored to Northeast Indian insurgent groups, through Bangladeshi soil, in operations jointly controlled by these agencies. On March 14, 2012, former ISI Chief Asad Durrani admitted, before a three-member bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, that the notorious agency had continuously intervened to support the insurgencies in India's Northeast.
Intelligence agency cooperation between Pakistan and Bangladesh, however, went into a gradual decline under the interim military-backed government between 2006 and 2008, and finally terminated under the Sheikh Hasina government, with the arrest, hand over, or expulsion of most Northeast insurgent leaders and cadres, over the past three years.
With the loss of Bangladesh as a staging ground, the ISI has now shifted its strategy. Intelligence sources indicate that the ISI has sought to extend its support to insurgent groupings in India's hinterland - implying efforts to establish links with the Maoists - and to deepen its engagement with groups such as Paresh Baruah's ULFA-ATF and the Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO). The KLO is now believed to have emerged as one of the principal weapons' suppliers to the Maoists, in turn, sourcing its own supplies from ULFA-ATF.
A January 11, 2012, news report cited intelligence sources to claim that the ISI 'recently' spent over Rs 200 million towards supplying arms to militant outfits in Assam, and through these, to the Maoists. Stockpiles of sophisticated weapons were transferred in two installments through the Kalishara area of Bangladesh, and handed over to militant outfits of the Northeast. Separately, between April and November 2011, the Tripura-based NLFT received a consignment of weapons in the Pheni (Feni) area on the Indo-Bangladesh border; the NDFB-RD received weapons at the border near Sylhet; the Garo rebel outfit GNLA collected its consignment at the Sherpur border area; the ULFA-ATF at the Haluwaghat border area; the NSCN-IM at Moulavibazar; the KLO at the Charonmola and Maheshkhali border areas. The handing over of weapons is reported to have been supervised by ISI agent G.K. Choudhury.
Earlier, on August 9, 2011, Shasadhar Choudhury, 'foreign secretary' ULFA-PTF had disclosed, "Pakistan's ISI trained ULFA. In 1991, I was part of the first batch of ULFA members to go to Pakistan for training in small arms, including main battle rifles." Media reports of January 9, 2010, cited a 'senior Bangladesh Minister' to allege that former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf had a secret meeting with jailed ULFA leader Anup Chetia during a visit to Dhaka, when the then Premier, Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was in power.
W
ith the loss of Bangladeshi safe havens, several of the surviving insurgent formations in the Northeast have moved into, or increased their presence in, Myanmar. ULFA-ATF, headed by Paresh Baruah, is reported to be located in the Taga Area in Myanmar, in close contact with the leaders of the Manipur-based groups, as well as with the Khaplang faction of NSCN (NSCN-K). The 'commander-in-chief' of the anti-talk faction of the NDFB-ATF, I.K. Sangbijit, along with several hardcore members of the outfit, are also believed to have moved closer to the Taga area.
On November 22, 2011, the central government formally confirmed that several militant outfits of India's Northeast, including ULFA-ATF, NDFB-ATF, and both the NSCN-IM and NSCN-K had established camps in the Sagaing Region, and states of Chin and Kachin, in Myanmar.
The shutting down of Bangladeshi safe havens for India's Northeastern insurgents has pushed the surviving groups together in their last foreign refuge in Myanmar, ready for picking by the Chinese. While the Chinese role in mobilizing these elements in an anti-India strategy remains shadowy, it is given substance by patterns of the flow of small arms into India.
Several Manipur-based militant formations, including the PLA, UNLF, PREPAK and KYKL, have arrived at a mutual understanding to seek Chinese support.
Crucially, the CPI-Maoist has made no secret of its objective of extending the "people's war throughout the country", and plans to fill up the emerging vacuum in the Northeast have long been afoot. These efforts have gained greater momentum because of the Maoists' search for a reliable source of weaponry. The Northeast rebel groupings offer access to smuggling routes through Myanmar and Bangladesh, and a new flood of Chinese small arms appears to have been released into the region. News reports indicate that intelligence sources, in September 2011, noted, "ULFA's Paresh Baruah faction recently received a huge cache of arms from China and there were serious apprehensions in the intelligence and security establishments that the outfit may sell these weapons to the Maoist. as ULFA has struck an alliance and has assured them of a steady supply of arms and ammunition."
Official sources also indicated that "ISI and PLA are in touch and supplying Maoists with arms. They are supposedly using China as the alternative route."
There has been a steady procurement of arms by Northeast militants from China over the years, especially from its Yunan Province, through the India-Myanmar border. This arms supply is propelled by a major modernization drive in the Chinese Army, resulting in the release of vast quantities of old weapons, some of which are being offloaded to arms dealers in the grey market. Weapons, including AK series and M-15 rifles, LMGs, and ammunition, discarded by the Chinese Army, are good enough for militant groups. The managers of Chinese state-owned weapons' establishments are reportedly involved in this clandestine arms supply. According to February 21, 2010, news report, nearly 80 per cent of weapons seized or recovered from militants in the Northeast in recent years have the 'star' mark, indicating Chinese manufacture, on them. In an analysis of the Asian weapons black market, Jane's Intelligence Review observes that the United Wa State Army (UWSA) rebel group in Myanmar acts as the "middleman" between Chinese arms manufacturers and insurgent groups in India's Northeast, with most weapons routed through China's Yunnan province.
Some quantities of weapons' supplies to militants in the Northeast are also being sourced from various other countries. A number of weapons recovered from the ultras in recent times were of German, Italian and Israeli manufacture. These were also brought into India mostly through Myanmar, and it is believed that Dimapur has become a hub for transaction of such weapons by the militant groups. Sources of weapons recovered in the Northeast have also been identified as including Pakistan, Belgium, Thailand, Russia, USA, UK, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Myanmar.
The involvement of Northeast militants with external agencies is visible in wide and variable indices. Growing linkages abroad, as well as between various insurgent groupings within the region, and with the Maoists, as well as the easy acquisition and inflow of arms into the region, give significant cause for concern, despite the declining indices of current violence.