ULFA's ceasefire offer finds few takers

NEW DELHI: Even as the Tarun Gogoi government is open to the latest ceasefire offer made by ULFA, there are few takers at the Centre for the olive branch as it comes at a time when the outfit���s 28th Battalion is on the run following sustained Army operations in the forests of Upper Assam.

The pre-conditions of the Centre that the ULFA must publicly eschew violence and that its top leadership, including commander-in-chief Paresh Baruah and/or chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, should sit for the negotiations, remain unchanged, insist MHA sources.

The ministry of defence and the Army are said to have opposed suspension of operations against ULFA, which have led to the neutralisation of 70 armed cadres over the last few weeks, unless the 28th Battalion as well as other cadre with arms have surrendered all their weapons.

The Centre is insistent that ULFA must accept these two pre-conditions, besides agreeing in writing that the talks would be within the purview of the Indian Constitution. The Army is believed to have cautioned the Centre and the Assam government against rushing into a decision on the ULFA ceasefire offer as it is only limited to the 28th battalion, which is the strongest military wing of the secessionist outfit.

���It is not clear whether the other wings of ULFA are on board,��� an Army official pointed out, adding that in any case, ULFA is on the run and it may only be a matter of time before the group is decimated to insignificant proportions.

Thus, giving it a reprieve in the form of a truce, the Army feels, may only prove counter-productive as the ceasefire may only be part of ULFA���s familiar ploy of declaring a ceasefire when it is under pressure from counter-insurgency forces, only to use the peace period to regroup and rearm itself.

This has been the experience in 2005, when several of its top leaders were trapped by the Army in Dibru-Saikhowa Reserve Forest and the troops neutralised 28th Battalion commander Achinta Saikia and ULFA finance secretary Janwi. ULFA immediately announced the formation of PCG, a group of eminent citizens from Assam, to explore the peace option.

A similar peace move in 1992, which involved freeing of ULFA leaders from jail to facilitate talks, has also backfired, with the freed leaders cocking a snook at the government by jumping bail and going underground.

The Assam chief minister has been taking up the 28th Battalion���s ceasefire offer, made via an e-mail sent to the local media, with national security adviser M K Narayanan and Union home minister Shivraj Patil. He also met them during a recent visit to the national Capital to discuss the truce option. The response from the Centre, however, was not too enthusiastic, with both the NSA and the MHA preferring a cautious approach.

In 2006, the Centre had entered into a suspension of operations with ULFA after it was convinced by mediators, assembled under the Peoples��� Consultative Group (PCG), that the ULFA leadership was willing to come forward for direct talks with the Centre.

However, when the leadership remained invisible long after declaration of the ceasefire, Centre withdrew the truce, only to discover later that ULFA had been happily regrouping.

The Army, which had to call off operations to make way for the 2006 truce, resumed operations after the ceasefire fell through and has, till date, neutralised several key leaders and cadres of the outfit. Hundreds of ULFA fighters have been neutralised, leaving the outfit a much weaker force both in terms of numbers and firepower.