Combating Insurgency: Need to Dry-up the War Chests
26 Apr, 2002 · 738
Bibhu Prasad Routray argues that checking extortion, a major source of funds for insurgents, would help in combating insurgency in the Northeast
A viable strategy to fight insurgency in the Northeast would be to stop their extortion activities. This tactic, though repeatedly highlighted by experts, has not been achieved. At times the collection process has lessened, but it has never stopped. In fact extortion is so rampant today that it has seriously affected developmental activity in the region.
26 March 2002 , a government servant in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh was killed by insurgents of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) when he failed to arrange the ransom demanded by the outfit. Such cases are occasionally reported but fail to adequately capture the ground reality. There are reasons to believe that the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was, by and large, successful in collecting its targeted amount of Rs.100 crores (US $22 m) from specific districts of lower and upper
Assam
in 2001.
Assam
, has never stopped extortion even after renouncing insurgency. Termed as ‘Bodoland tax’, this collection process has attracted little media attention. Besides people living in the present Bodoland Autonomous Council (BAC), commercial and private vehicles transiting the area are forced to pay this tax. Similarly, the NSCN-IM’s extortion network, notwithstanding its 1997-ceasefire agreement with the Union government, is possibly the widest in the region. It ranges from at least two districts in
Assam
(NC Hills and Karbi Anglong) to Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, in addition to Nagaland.
Assam
in return for training facilities, arms and ammunition for its cadres. A similar arrangement continues between the ULFA and the KLO in
North Bengal
. That apart, extortion has created a decadent culture. Young people have joined insurgent outfits in the region but have also masqueraded as insurgents to coerce people to pay up.
Over time, the insurgent outfits have perfected the art of extortion. Earlier, tea companies, public sector undertakings like the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) and Oil India Limited (OIL) were targeted. Media and intelligence reports suggest that tea companies like Tata Tea and Williamson Magor paid huge amounts to the insurgents either to buy peace or to seek the release of their abducted employees. In some cases, the oil companies had to stop their operations. In fact ONGC has stopped exploring for oil in Nagaland since May 1994. Similarly, in Tripura, the labourers and managers of private companies laying railway tracks are regularly abducted by the insurgents who demand huge ransoms for their release.
Over time, this tactic has been replaced by horizontal spread of their network to target the general populace. Common people, government servants, petty traders, apart from well to do businessmen, are forced to pay up. On
Extortion has affected the insurgency-ridden states, but also spilt over into relatively peaceful states like Arunachal Pradesh. In the districts of Tirap, Changlang and Lohit, cadres of NSCN-IM, NSCN-K (National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang) and ULFA have regularly indulged in large-scale extortion targeting common people, bureaucrats and businessmen. Rates vary between ten to fifty per cent of the person’s total income. There are even cases when the oil companies in the State ended up suspending their operations due to rampant extortion threats.
It is ironical that extortion is practiced not only by active outfits, but also by those engaged in negotiation processes with the Union government. The Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT), which is seeking a Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) in
This extortion mechanism makes a significant contribution to the ‘war chest’ of the insurgent outfits. While for ULFA and NSCN-IM extortion constitutes an important source of income, other outfits like the United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) and the Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) are wholly dependent on extortion. Thus, any success in disrupting this mechanism would neutralise these second rung outfits. In addition to enriching their coffers, extortion establishes a curious nexus between the outfits, and has created an agent-master paradigm in the region. For example, the UPDS was the ‘fund collector’ for the NSCN-IM in
Any concerted move to disrupt this process would have multiple advantages. It would make it difficult for the outfits to continue their activities due to their financial viability getting affected; this would reflect in cadre recruitment, and propensity for making easy money in a section of the youth.
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