NE rebels hand in glove with Chinese spies: Centre

By Rakesh K Singh

New Delhi: In a candid admission of facts, the Union Home Ministry has revealed that inputs with the Centre suggest liaison of top leaders of some insurgent groups in the North-East, especially the NSCN (I-M) with which the Government is engaged in dialogue for peace, with the Chinese intelligence agencies.

While Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isaac-Muivah) faction maintains close links with the Chinese intelligence agencies, the banned People’s Liberation Army of Manipur has established a permanent base in Ruili of Yannan province of China. The Centre has been pursuing dialogue for peace with the NSCN (IM) faction even as the NSCN (Khaplang) faction continues to advocate sovereignty for the Naga homeland.

Intelligence reports also point out that the Khaplang faction has set up camps in Mon district in the Sagaing division of Myanmar for providing shelter to its cadre.

The revelations were made by Union Home Secretary RK Singh earlier this year before a Parliamentary committee. Intelligence reports have been pointing to smuggling of arms from Yunnan province but this is the first time a senior official has candidly admitted the role of Chinese agencies in fuelling trouble in the North-East.

With a friendly regime in Bangladesh shutting down most of the camps of the Indian insurgent groups, the insurgents are now smuggling arms from China, Thailand and Sino-Myanmar border towns like Tengchong, Ruili and Yingjiang in Yunnan province and route them through Myanmar.

India has raised the concerns with China through diplomatic channels. Linkages of some of the North-East insurgent groups with the banned CPI(Maoist) and recoveries of the Chinese AK 81 assault rifles from the Naxals give a new dynamism to the North-East insurgency.

The National Investigation Agency is discreetly probing the linkages of the North-East insurgent groups with foreign agencies including their funding channels.

The Parliamentary committee noted: “North-East is one of the hottest trouble spots of the country, not simply because the region has many armed insurgent organisations operating and fighting the Indian State, but because trans-border linkages that these groups have, and strategic alliances among them, have acted as force multipliers and have made the conflict dynamics all the more intricate.”

With demands of these groups ranging from secession to autonomy and the right to self determination, and a plethora of ethnic groups clamouring for special rights and the protection of their distinct identity, the region has become turbulent one, it further observed.

The committee outlined that counter-insurgency strategies in the North-East should be multi-pronged and India should include a clause for closure of training camps of insurgent groups in all trade discussions with the countries bordering the region.

According to the Union Home Ministry, there are 79 insurgent groups, including splinter groups, active in the North-East and the major ones include United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) (anti-talk faction), Meitei insurgent groups like Revolutionary People’s Front, People’s Liberation Army, United National Liberation Front (UNLF), Kangleipak Communist Party, Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup and People’s Revolutionary Party of Kengleipak in Manipur. Achik National Volunteers’ Council, Garo National Liberation Army and Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council in Meghalaya, factions of NSCN in Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh and National Liberation Front of Tripura (Biswamohan group) and All Tripura Tiger Force.