Outfits split, Delhi gets a headache

By NISHIT DHOLABHAI (The Telegraph 23rd August 2011)

New Delhi, Aug. 22: Factionalism is the bane of rebel politics in the Northeast, the government is rediscovering, with proliferating militant groups constantly putting a spanner in its efforts to bring peace to the region.

A “revised estimate” of militant groups in the Northeast has revealed that Manipur alone has more than 50 outfits with groups like Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) splitting a dozen times.

Extortion, the government’s policy of pumping money and decades-long unresolved political problems have led to constantly proliferating rebel groups in this strategically important region.

Ranjan Daimary of the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) was in Bangladesh before being handed over last year. No sooner was he arrested than his subordinate Songbijit took over and he is not ready for talks. As the government begins talks with one faction, another aspirant takes over and escapes to either Bhutan or Bangladesh or Myanmar.

While talks have been initiated with many groups like the Arabinda Rajkhowa faction of Ulfa, the Govinda Basumatary-led Progressive faction of the NDFB and the Dilip Nunisa faction of the DHD in Assam, the ANVC in Meghalaya and Kuki outfits in Manipur, and many are coming forward like NDFB’s Daimary faction and DHD’s Jewel Gorlosa faction, more outfits, many even without a name, are posing fresh challenges.

Sources said while Gorlosa was ready to talk, his subordinate hiding in a neighbouring country was not.

Others like the Paresh Barua-led Ulfa are sitting pretty in Myanmar and have allied with the Khaplang faction of the NSCN and the Manipur-based People’s Liberation Army and United National Liberation Front.

The NSCN that was divided into two factions in 1988 (Isak-Muivah and Khaplang) further split this year into the Myanmar-based Khaplang faction and Khole Konyak-Kitovi Zhimomi faction in Nagaland. The Khole-Kitovi faction, which fired “chairman” S.S. Khaplang, has become an asset for peacemakers on the Indian side but Zhimomi’s brother-in-law and his junior Kughalu Mulatonu has defected to Khaplang’s side. The Federal Government of Nagaland or NNC has three factions.

The People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak, one of the oldest outfits of Manipur, has three factions followed by four factions of the Kuki National Front and two of the Kuki National Army. The KCP, formed in April 1980, has split again and again like other outfits in Imphal valley.

The government’s predicament is finding a way to talk to all the leaders of these groups. Government officials feel this is not happening because the financial stakes from extortion are too high.

The Isak-Muivah and Khaplang factions have fought pitched battles leading to bloodshed. Even when there is an absence of inter-factional fighting, there are still several “revolutionary governments” collecting “taxes” from the population. “All these factions collect taxes. We have four governments in Nagaland,” said a Nagaland official. This is confirmed by Manipur government employees, who get threat calls from Manipuri outfits from the extortion capital of Dimapur.

Shillong may conjure images of the old British charm of a hill capital with its churches and educational institutions, but Meghalaya still boasts of nine militant outfits. That includes little known groups like Retrieval Indigenous Unified Front and the Garo National Front.

Meghalaya has more than Assam’s five major outfits, according to the government’s conservative estimates. The ministry of home affairs, however, has not included groups like the Karbi Longri National Liberation Front.

P.C. Haldar, the interlocutor for talks with Ulfa, feels there are many reasons for the splits like financial stake, especially when one leader gets a lion’s share and makes investments, and personality clashes. In order to achieve peace, he said, there should be reconciliation among warring groups. But this is not always possible, he added.

“Mobilise a sizeable number (of leaders/factions) for a dialogue,” the former director of Intelligence Bureau told The Telegraph. This is perhaps what is happening across the spectrum in the region as leaders of Ulfa, NDFB, DHD and NSCN factions come together for a dialogue. In Nagaland, the NSCN and the FGN factions are being brought together by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation.