Doing India’s Dirty Work

By Smita Mishra Brahma/Ledo and Moreh, India
Irrawaddy online: 01 December, 2006

Burmese troops attack Indian insurgent strongholds in the northeast

India’s military strategists are all smiles as Burma’s generals direct a fall offensive to eliminate three Indian insurgent groups in Burma’s northwestern Sagaing Division. If the assaults are successful, India will have removed a major source of strife and sabotage against its energy pipelines.

The Burmese Tatmadaw, the country’s armed forces, is waging the attacks with military hardware provided by India in what was a quid pro quo agreement.

At least three bases of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland’s Khaplang faction and the United Liberation Front of Assam—Chuiyang Noknu, Challam and Longjie—have already fallen to Burmese forces after a fortnight of fighting.

“Our fighters have been dislodged from these bases, but we will soon stage counter-attacks,” said Kughalo Mulatonu, spokesperson for the NSCN-K in an interview. “We know the Tatmadaw has major logistics problems in the remote region and that works to our advantage.”

Indian army officials say that the Burmese troops are preparing for a big offensive. “What you now see are probes and jabs,” said a major-general in the Third Indian Army Corps based at Rangapahar in India’s Nagaland state. “The Burmese have overrun some bases on the foothills of the Tenu Tapak ranges, but once the rains stop completely and the jungle tracks dry up, their light infantry may push into the rebel strongholds in a more purposeful way.”

But the major-general, who declined to be named, said the real target of the Burmese army would be the dreaded 28th battalion of the ULFA, which shares some bases with the Khaplang faction of the NSCN in Upper Sagaing.

The crack battalion has “sabotage specialists” who were trained by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence, says Assam’s police intelligence chief Khagen Sarmah.

“They are the guys who bomb our oil and gas pipelines in Upper Assam by sneaking across from Burma,” Sarmah says. “If the Burmese wipe out their bases, they will be denied safe trans-border shelter and become sitting ducks for us.”

In September, Indian officials offered a visiting Burmese delegation headed by Brig-Gen Phone Swe, deputy minister for Home Affairs, substantial Indian military hardware if the Tatmadaw would agree to attack the northeast Indian rebels inside Burma.

In a similar agreement in December 2004, following relentless Indian diplomatic pressure, the Bhutanese army launched “Operation All Clear” and destroyed nearly 30 bases of the ULFA, and two other separatist groups active in India’s West Bengal and Assam states. Since then, India has intensified similar diplomatic pressure on Burma and Bangladesh, where rebels from India’s northeast have established several bases.

The Burmese delegation reportedly assured the Indians that they would launch an offensive against northeast Indian rebels. Large columns of trucks loaded with Indian military supplies were soon seen rolling into the Indian border town of Moreh, located opposite Tamu, Burma.

The Tatmadaw received two squadrons of 36 T-55 tanks, forty 105 mm howitzers, more than 150 heavy mortar launchers and an unspecified number of machine-guns, assault rifles and grenade-firing rifles, along with large quantities of ammunition.

Although the tanks and howitzers are all in a phase-out mode from the Indian army, they will add firepower to Burmese artillery and armored units, says Gaganjit Singh, a former Indian major general who specialized in counter-insurgency operations.

A senior official in the Indian defense ministry said: “If the Burmese army does a good job in hitting our rebels and in crushing them, we may give them more military hardware, particularly tanks and artillery pieces.”

In Calcutta, Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee told journalists he was hopeful the Burmese would succeed in knocking out the rebel strongholds.

“We wanted negotiations with the ULFA, but since they don’t want to commit to that in writing, we are left with no option but to strike. This time, we will not strike alone. We will do it in a coordinated manner with our Burmese friends. We will catch these rebels in a nutcracker. And we will give the Burmese whatever they need.”

The Indian army expects that the Burmese armed forces will expand operations after the initial forays against the ULFA and the NSCN.  The rebel groups of India’s Manipur State, the United National Liberation Front and Peoples Liberation Army, have both ruled out negotiations with India, and their leaders have called for plebiscites.

“No government in Delhi can accept this affront,” said Indian defense analyst C Raja Mohan. “So we will keep up our pressure on the Burmese and ask them to attack the Manipuri guerrillas.”

The entire strategic community in Delhi seems to support the government’s Burma policy.

“It is not India’s job to restore democracy in Burma,” said Anil Kambhoj of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Analysis. “We cannot do it as well. It is for the Burmese people to fight for it. But we must deal with the government that rules Rangoon, because we must get them to act to sanitize our long borders and clear out insurgents.”

The present Indian policy is a sharp turnaround from the late 1980s, when Indian intelligence backed a host of Burmese rebel groups, such as the Kachin Independence Army, the Chin National Front and the National Unity Party of Arakan. India is now looking the other way on the issue of the junta’s human rights abuses and the continued house arrest of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

India abandoned Suu Kyi’s cause and started courting the Burmese military junta to neutralize ongoing Chinese aid, such as the modernization of Burmese naval bases at Hainggyi, Mun Aung, Sittwe, Zadetkyi and Mergui, where radar stations and resupply and refueling facilities are located.

The Indian navy is concerned that these bases, along with an electronic intelligence outpost on Burma’s Coco Islands (30 km from India’s Andaman Islands), would support and augment Chinese submarine operational capability in the Bay of Bengal-Indian Ocean region.

In August, despite British protests, the Indian navy transferred two BN-2 ‘Defender’ Islander maritime surveillance aircraft, deck-based air-defense guns and varied surveillance equipment to Burma. Britain reacted by declaring it will not supply spare parts and maintenance support for the British-designed aircraft.