November 28, 2002	Thursday	Ramazan 22, 1423

NEW DELHI: After 37 years in exile, two insurgent rebel leaders will be allowed to return for talks to end almost 40 years of bloodshed in India’s northeast.

India’s decision to lift the ban on the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) party on Wednesday, in an effort to halt the longest-running insurgency in the country, is being cautiously heralded as a step in the right direction.

Thousands of people have been killed in fighting over the NSCN’s goal of an independent Naga state of Nagalim, carved out of the current Indian state of Nagaland, and joined by other ethnic Naga-inhabited areas. The Naga people live in the Naga Hills of Myanmar and in northeastern India.

NSCN leaders Thuingaleng Muivah and Isak Chisi Swu will now be allowed to enter India after 37 years in exile in Thailand. The leaders are scheduled to hold the first direct talks with the Indian government in more than two decades, in December.

The Indian government accuses the NSCN of supporting a variety of ethnic insurgent groups in the region. While some observers see the NSCN ban removal as a chance for peaceful change, others say it is only a small start in solving a complex dispute in a region largely disconnected from the rest of India.

Northeast India is a conglomerate of seven states — Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya — bordering four countries, China, Myanmar, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Combined, the seven states are home to 5 per cent of India’s population, along with an estimated 50 different militant groups operating in the region.

The groups’ agendas vary from the goal of independence to simple extortion. Many run parallel governments in remote areas where there is little chance of state government intervention.

“Insurgency in the region arises from economic backwardness and political alienation of the tribal population from the national mainstream,” explained researcher Dinesh Kotwal in a report on the region.

Illegal immigrants complicate the issue. According to studies, between one to two million immigrants have inundated the region in recent years.

Tripura was flooded with Hindu Bangladeshi migrants, Assam with Moslem Bangladeshis, and Mizoram has seen an influx of Burmese Christians.

In some parts of Assam, the immigrant population constitutes more than 70 per cent of the total populace. This translates into separatist aspirations which, in turn, stirs nationalist passions.

The National Liberation Front of Tripura — one of the most brutal insurgent groups operating in the northeast and predominantly made up of Christian cadres, has a history of attacking non-Christian villages. According to the Tripura state government, about 59,000 people have been displaced from their homes due to militancy since 1998. In that period about 900 people were killed in Tripura and 1,436 kidnapped.

Manipur and Nagaland have witnessed a total collapse of state governance. Rebel gangs offer their own political leaders in many regions where state officials and police are virtually non-existent. Rampant corruption reigns.

The struggles have affected ties with neighbouring countries. India accuses Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar of supporting and harbouring separatist groups.

Over the decades, the profile of many organizations has evolved; some have entered politics, some have surrendered, and others have been reduced to criminal gangs running extortion rackets.

“The romance is dead,” said Sanjoy Hazarika, an expert on the region. “Suddenly cadres don’t have a cause, most groups no longer fight for any cause and their ideology is lost.”

One such group is the United Liberation Front of Assam. It lost its grip on the Assamese population after a 1986 peace accord was signed, which resulted in a decline in insurgent attacks.

India’s recent decision to hold talks with Naga rebel leaders is also expected to give a shot in the arm to the region’s faltering economy. Years of militant activity has taken its toll on economic prosperity.

Following a series of extortions and kidnappings, several tea gardens in Assam closed down, squeezing off the state’s main income source.

The oil business has not fared well either with a number of executives working for Indian oil companies across the region being kidnapped and exorbitant ransoms demanded from employees or families.

“Our economic condition is very bad. There are a lot of unemployed, educated young people,” says former chief minister of Mizoram T. Sailo in a recent newspaper interview.

In the rest of India, little is known about the northeast of the country. On the streets of New Delhi, troubles in Kashmir dominate talk of insurgency.

While the first move has been made to end a conflict that rivals the bloodshed in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, it remains to be seen if India’s oldest separatist struggle will finally come to an end.—dpa