The Rediff Special
ULFA has accumulated around Rs 15 billion so far
This partly explains ULFA's huge reserves of funds stashed away
in banks abroad. ULFA is believed to collect, through extortions,
between Rs 300 million to Rs 400 million each year from the 1,500 big
and small tea gardens and business houses in Assam. The money
is put away in banks in Bangladesh, Bhutan, France, Switzerland
and Thailand. Home Ministry officials estimate that ULFA has accumulated
around Rs 15 billion so far. After the Awami League government
led by Sheikh Hasina came to power, Bangladesh alone is reported
to have frozen Rs 2 billion kept by ULFA in the country's Sonali
Bank.
The Bodo militants, too, have been raising large sums of money,
though the amount isn't anywhere near what ULFA collects. On
September 22, The Economic Times scooped details from the account
books of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland showing a progressive
increase in the amount of 'tax' collected by the militants. The
amount, according to the report, was Rs 1,35,61,500 in 1994-95,
Rs 1,82,30,450 in 1995-96 and Rs 4,43,21,995 in 1996-97.
Clearly, insurgency these days is a mega-budget affair, and monetarily
ULFA is worth more than many large corporations. And much of the
funds, as is now evident, have been provided by the country's
Rs 20 billion tea industry.
The tea industry, however, accounts for only a part -- a large
one though -- of the insurgents's finances. Outfits such as ULFA,
NDFB and rebel groups in Manipur and Nagaland thrive on
money provided by every other industry and individual businessmen
operating in the region. ''Why is everybody accusing the tea industry
only? Why isn't anybody talking of the plywood industry?'' asks
the tea executive. The plywood business, apparently, is equally
guilty of funding the militants.
According to Lt-Gen R K Sawhney, GOC 4 Corps, which has been entrusted
with counter-insurgency operations in Assam, ULFA collected Rs
3 billion from various development agencies, irrigation departments,
contractors, and even villagers and shop-owners.
Chief Minister Mahanta, too, told the Guwahati press
earlier this year that development funds from block offices in
North Lakhimpur and Nalbari districts were being diverted to the
militants's coffers.
And while ULFA and the Bodos are taxing the team companies, other
business establishments and even government departments, the National
Socialist Council of Nagaland (I&M) are imposing levies on
government employees, contractors and businessmen in the remote
areas of the North Cachar Hill district, which remain beyond the
administration's gaze.
Moreover, reports of late have appeared in the Guwahati press
which say that NRIs, too, are actively funding militant groups.
According to intelligence agencies, they work as ULFA's ambassadors
abroad, raise funds, and also mediate between the outfit and international
arms dealers.
And where does all the money go? To buy arms, pay for training
of the cadres and foreign travels of leaders, towards allowances
for whole-time activists, and on propaganda campaigns.
The army has been repeatedly saying for the last couple of years
that large quantities of arms, explosives and communication
equipment have been flowing into Assam and
the other troubled states of the North-East.
The arms, according to the army, are being sourced from several
places. The former Soviet republics are said to be selling their
hardware at competitive prices. Afghanistan and Peshawar in Pakistan
provide attractive shopping malls for clandestine buyers. And,
of late, arms into the North-East are also said to be coming
from Cambodia, where the shattered forces of the Khmer Rouge
are believed to be dumping their AK-s to raise money for survival.
The army believes the material is entering India through
various points along the porous international border with Myanmar,
Bangladesh and Bhutan, but overland routes through India are
also not being discounted. Every rupee given to the militants
turns into bullets, Lt Gen Sawhney is reported to have said.
Tea industry sources, however, say they are helpless in the
face of threats and demands made by gun-toting militants. Anyone
familiar with the Assam countryside would readily concede that
tea personnel, marooned in isolated pockets surrounded by an undulating
sea of tea bushes, are forever vulnerable.
The gardens which extend for miles with no police station in the
vicinity and the workers's quarters located only on the periphery,
can hardly be insulated against incursions by militants. ''Who
will protect us and our families out here?'' demanded the manager
of a garden situated close to the oil town of Digboi.
It is impossible to protect garden personnel by deploying
armed guards, says a tea executive based in Calcutta. ''That's
an unrealistic propositions," he says, and feels that problem
cannot be tackled at the law and order level. ''What is needed
is a permanent, political solution.''
Clearly, the planters, just as anybody else stationed in the region,
are in no mood to be martyred to solve a problem that is not of
their own making. They are there to do a job, to run a business,
or manage industrial establishments, not cross swords with the militants.
Surely, it is the government's duty to provide a trouble-free
environment in the first place, they argue. So, when politicians
and the administration abdicate their responsibilities, peace
and security may have to be brought, if necessary at exorbitant
prices.
The argument is not without substance considering the fact that
neither the police nor the army have succeeded in snuffing out
the insurgents despite continual operations for close to a decade
now. In fact, the political leadership has often blown hot and
cold, wavering without any consistent policy.
It is common knowledge that the AGP was hand in glove with ULFA
through the eighties, with then home minister Bhrigu Phukan
being particularly sympathetic towards the militants. Later, Congress
chief minister Hiteswar Saikia decided to put ongoing army operations
on hold and release arrested ULFA cadres in the hope that they
could be successfully rehabilitated. This created another set
of recalcitrant people who came to be known as SULFA (surrendered
ULFA). They were flush with rehabilitation funds and earned notoriety
for their corruption and vices. And last year, Prafulla Mahanta
had promised to withdraw the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in
his elections campaign, thus ensuring a measure of ULFA support.
Kind courtesy: Sunday magazine
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