Bhutan to take action on Indian rebel camps

NEW DELHI // Six years after Bhutan’s army cleared Indian separatist rebels from its territory with the help of the Indian army, the two countries are planning a similar operation against the same groups, which have regained their bases in the Himalayan kingdom, according to regional security experts.

Militant separatists have been operating in north-east India’s Assam and West Bengal states for decades, and have long taken advantage of the 699km-long unguarded border between India and Bhutan, building bases in the kingdom’s forests. At least two major Assamese separatist groups are known to be operating from bases in Bhutan’s jungles, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB).

Last month, the Indian home minister, P Chidambaram, during talks with the king of Bhutan, Jigme KN Wangchuck, on a three-day visit to the country, raised concerns about the re-entrenchment of Assamese and other north-eastern rebel groups in Bhutan.

“I sensitised the Bhutan government [on the Indian rebel camps] and the king has assured [he will] take suitable action,” Mr Chidambaram told reporters.

Although he did not give details on any forthcoming action, counter-insurgency experts believe a Bhutanese military operation to dislodge the rebels is imminent.

“Since Bhutan has agreed to take action, we can now expect a 2003-like operation, with India’s logistical and other support. Nothing less than a widespread and tough Bhutanese army crackdown, with active co-operation from the Indian army, can succeed to flush them out of Bhutan,” said Nani Gopal Mahanta, coordinator of Peace and Conflict Studies at Gauhati University in Guwahati, Assam’s largest city.

An Indian army major, who is engaged in counter-insurgency operations in Assam and is not allowed to speak to the media, said Bhutan would surely comply with New Delhi’s request and use its army to flush out the rebels, as it had done in 2003.

The separatist militants originally fled across the border in the early 1990s after Indian security forces launched the decade-long Operation Rhino to crush the Assamese nationalists. Many guerrillas decamped to southern Bhutan and remote areas of Bangladesh, to regroup and to plan attacks.

Others found sanctuary in Bhutan when Sheikh Hasina, during her first term as Bangladesh’s prime minister in the late 1990s, ordered the army at the behest of New Delhi to clear Indian rebel bases from her country’s remote border regions.

Pressure from New Delhi finally resulted in Bhutan’s Operation All Clear, in which forces led by the Royal Bhutan Army in 2003 smashed the rebel camps and drove more than 3,000 insurgents into India.

Some of the displaced rebels trickled back into Bangladesh and Myanmar, while others surrendered to Indian authorities.

While half a dozen separatist groups fight the Indian state for Assamese independence – and each other for control of the movement – the ULFA is considered the deadliest, having carried out more than a dozen terror attacks in north-east India over the past eight years. Indian authorities also suspect the group was behind 13 synchronised blasts in Assam last October 30, which killed more than 80 people.

Established in 1979, the ULFA seeks a separate homeland for ethnic Assamese and demands non-indigenous Hindi-speaking immigrants to leave the state. The ULFA’s core demand is a “sovereign, independent Assam”. It has agreed to give up arms if the union government meets this demand.

Over the past two years, both Myanmar and Bangladesh have stepped up operations to drive ULFA fighters out of their territory, leaving Bhutan as their last refuge, giving Indian authorities hope that the long-running insurgency may be losing force.

“Recently, with Burma and Bangladesh turning hostile, at least to some extent, some of the rebel groups have chosen Bhutan again as a safer base. If a tough action is mounted and the rebels are forced to flee Bhutan, we could see an increase in the number of rebels surrendering to India,” said Suresh Yadav, a battalion commander of India’s Border Security Force in West Bengal.

Quoting unnamed Indian intelligence sources, The Times of India last month reported that the ULFA and NDFB had been joined in their camps in southern Bhutan by the Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), which poses a growing threat to the kingdom.

Pointing to a December incident in which Bhutanese Maoists ambushed an army patrol in south Bhutan, killing four of the forest guards, Bhutanese officials recently reported that the Indian rebel groups were preparing Bhutanese Maoists and other rebel groups for anti-state violence in Bhutan.

“[Bhutanese] anti-national groups like the Maoists, Bhutan Tiger Force and the Revolutionary Youth of Bhutan are receiving guerrilla, sabotage and other military training from the ULFA and Bodo militants,” said Bhutan’s joint secretary of the law and order bureau, Karma T Namgyal, adding that his country would act against the Indian rebels.

Indian military intelligence sources also told The Times of India that, in the planned operation, Indian forces, as they did in 2003, would stand guard on the Indian side of the border, while the Bhutanese army closed in on the rebels.