SAMDRUP JONGKHAR (BHUTAN), Dec 20 ? The drive against the NE Indian militants in Bhutan is purely a Bhutanese operation and there should not be any doubt of the involvement of the Indian Government in it. No doubt, the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGB) and the Government of India (GOI) are working in close consultation in matters of flushing out the militants, said Director, Foreign Ministry, RGB Yeshey Dorji here this noon while talking to The Assam Tribune.
The RGB was compelled by the rigid stand of the Indian militant outfits to leave the Bhutanese soil despite the attempts of the RGB for the past several years to resolve the issue peacefully through negotiation. ?We were talking to these outfits outlawed in India, with the aim at impressing upon them to leave our territory for the past six years. While the ULFA representatives attended the talks on five occasions during the period, the representatives of the NDFB showed up on three occasions and the KLO had sent its representatives to the talks only on one occasion,? he said.
The Bhutan National Assembly (BNA) had been discussing the issue for the past six years and it had asked the RGB during July-August last, to initiate a talk for the last occasion. In case of the failure of that round to resolve the issue, the BNA directed the RGB to engage the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) to flush the Indian militants out of Bhutan, Dorji said. And to the last round of talk on December 13 this year, the ULFA sent its middle rung leaders to represent it. In the that talk, the militants were asked firmly to leave the Bhutanese soil within 48 hours and the operation started on December 15, said the Director of the RGB?s Foreign Ministry.
He also said that the RGB attached such importance to the talks that even the Bhutanese Premier had attended the talk held last month with the Indian militants. While the Bhutan Government was trying to persuade the militants to leave Bhutanese soil on their own, the militants were insisting only on securing permission to stay in Bhutan. The permission to stay in Bhutan was the sole item on the militants? agenda, he said.
Commenting on the compulsions faced by the Bhutanese Government to flush out the militants from Bhutan, he said that the Bhutanese Government could not afford to allow its friendly relation with India to be affected. Moreover, the stay of the militants on the Bhutanese soil was affecting development of the people of Bhutan. Besides, it was posing a serious threat to the sovereignty of Bhutan, he said.
The innocent people of Bhutan were subjected to the threats, coercion and extortion of the militants, as do the people of Assam and West Bengal. On the other hand, due to the militants? activities, trade, commerce and agricultural activities in Bhutan were also affected. Even, schools in all the vulnerable areas of Bhutan had to be relocated for the past about six to seven years, said Dorji.
The three militant outfits had altogether 30 camps in Bhutan and all the camps have now been dismantled by the RBA. The camps were located in the three districts of Samdrup Jongkhar and Sarpang, bordering Assam and Shemgang, bordering Assam and West Bengal and Samtse, bordering West Bengal. Most of the camps belonged to the ULFA. In Samdrup Jongkhar district, the ULFA had both its Central Headquarters and the General Headquarters located.
According to a rough estimate, Dorji said, the militant outfits together had a total number of about 3, 000 operatives present in Bhutan and these militants were extremely well armed and they were camping in the rugged terrain of Bhutan. Their activities affected development activities in ten districts in the southern region of Bhutan. The districts include, in addition to the above four, Pema Gatshel, Chuka, Tsirang, Mongar, Throngsa and Trashigang. Bhutan has only 20 districts and the total population of the country is a little more than 7,00,000. The Southern part of the country is relatively prosperous because of the region?s proximity to India, its fertile land and location of the major industries in it like the cement plants, the calcium carbide plants, the ferro alloy plants and the distilleries, Dorji said.
The NE Indian militants were responsible for the attack on the police station and the forest ranger?s residence at Nganglam in Samdrup Jongkhar in September 1998. In those incidents four Bhutanes police personnel were killed and three other police personnel received serious injutries. Then in December that year, an RBA convoy was ambushed by the militants near Nganglam. One officer was killed and six army personnel were seriously injured in the incident.
In December 2000, two cases of attack on Bhutanese vehicles were there by the militants in Assam. These vehicles included passenger buses. Those incidents left 15 killed and 19 injured and the list of casualty included the names of women and children. In July 2001, a Bhutanese Government vehicle was blown up by the militants in Assam, near Glephu using remote control devices. In the incident, four persons were killed, including one student. Several others were injured in the incident, Dorji said and expressed the hope that the people of Assam and West Bengal would understand the problems and compulsions of the Bhutanese Government and the people of Bhutan that forced them to opt for the Army operation against the militants.