Tripartite Memorandum of Settlement significant step in Assam’s four decade-long ULFA insurgency

GUWAHATI: A significant chapter in Assam’s 44-year-long journey of twists and turns in the ULFA insurgency is set to be written with the signing of a tripartite Memorandum of Settlement with the pro-talks faction of the outfit at New Delhi on Friday.

Contemporary Assam has been marked by many a milestone affecting the lives of people but the ULFA issue, which initially started as a movement but transformed quickly into an armed struggle characterised by kidnappings, extortions, killings and bomb blasts, continued to remain at the top of the many contentious issues that needed a resolution.

The signing of the settlement, however, is being viewed as an incomplete solution to the four-decade-old problem with the Paresh Barua-led ULFA (Independent) faction unwilling to come for negotiations unless the issue of Assam’s ‘sovereignty’ is discussed. Its cadres have been engaged in sporadic incidents of violence, with security forces intensifying operations.

The ULFA, formed on April 7, 1979 at the historic Ahom-era amphitheatre Rang Ghar at Sivasagar by a group of 20 youngsters from Upper Assam districts, had expressed willingness for talks on several occasions but had been firm on its stand on ‘sovereignty’.

It was only after the outfit split for the second time in 2011 with the top leadership, including chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, returning to Assam from a neighbouring country that they agreed to come to the negotiating table without the sovereignty clause and submitted a 12-point charter of demands to the Central government.

The outfit had earlier split in 1992 with a section of leaders and cadres expressing a desire for talks but both Rajkhowa and Barua had then been firm on the ‘sovereignty’ clause.

The ULFA, initially influenced by the insurgency in neighbouring Nagaland and Mizoram, had in its early days gained popularity among the rural masses, particularly attracting rural educated but unemployed youths.

The outfit is reported to have wielded considerable power during the first Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) government from 1985 but the bonhomie with both the state government and the masses gradually waned as the state slipped into turmoil with a spate of the kidnappings, extortions and killings unleashed by the ULFA.

The situation in the state came to a turning point in November 1990, when the ULFA extortions from the tea gardens were at the peak and the Doomdooma-based Unilever lifted seven of its executive to New Delhi with the help of the Union Home Ministry but by keeping the state government in the dark.

This was followed by the launch of ‘Operation Bajrang’ by the Army on November 28, 1990 against the ULFA and the next day, President’s Rule was imposed in the state with the dismissal of the Prafulla Mahanta-led AGP government. It led to the arrest of 1,221 militants, Assam was declared a ‘disturbed area’ and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act or AFSPA was imposed and the ULFA declared a separatist and unlawful organisation.

It was during this operation, which continued till January 30, 1991, that the doors for negotiations with the outfit opened for the first time with the then PM Chandrasekhar.

In December 2009, top ULFA leaders, including Rajkhowa, were arrested in Bangladesh and deported to India and jailed in Guwahati.

Rajkhowa and the other jailed ULFA leaders were released from prison in 2011 while the outfit’s general secretary Anup Chetia was released from a Bangladesh jail in 2015, after serving a term of 18 years since 1997.

Talks were being held periodically since then with the Centre and the ULFA (pro-talks) faction with the latter submitting a 12-point charter of demands to the government in 2012.

The Centre had sent a draft of the proposed agreement to the pro-talks faction in April this year.

Another round of discussion was held with the faction in New Delhi in August. In October, Chetia had said the pro-talks faction had sent its suggestions regarding the draft proposals to the Centre.