After Three Days, Guests, Just Like Fish, Start To Stink!

We are recently seeing reports that the Royal Bhutanese Army taking action against three different anti-Indian groups - the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) and the Kamatapur Liberation Organization (KLO). The Royal Bhutanese Army (RBA) is tiny, hardly 6,000 in total, and is up against an estimated 3,000 rebels. Say what? How did this situation come about? Bhutan is a very remote, peaceful nation. The RBA is hardly more than a police force, with no heavy equipment. Based on an admittedly simplistic reading of the press reports, the action is no police action but a full fledged war situation. So what prompted the RBA to go about taking offensive action against such a huge group?

Taking a step back, groups which wage war or insurrection on other countries while enjoying the hospitality of the host nation almost always have issues with the host nation. Sometimes issues are minor with general grumbling seen as a reaction, sometimes the issues are major enough for the host nation to go to war with them. There is a third reaction as well when these groups are subsumed in the parent nation and after a generation has passed, the historical rights/wrongs are lost in the mists of history.

There are examples galore in the post WW2 era, such as the Cuban exiles in Florida; the Palestinians in Lebanon, Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan; the Afghan and Kashmiri Mujahideen in Pakistan; the Chakma and LTTE rebels in India; the knotty situation in and around Vietnam in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the Kashmiri militants in Pakistan and so on and so forth. In most of the cases, the groups were initially welcomed into the host country. Slowly, the host country gets a bit upset with the groups and the murmurs and grumbles increase. What happens after that is up to the groups themselves as we shall see.

The case of the Cuban exiles in Florida is a good example of the first and third reactions. The situation goes back to 1959, when Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara overthrew the Batista regime. After its lovely flirtation with communism and socialism, emigration rose significantly and since Florida was the closest landfall (both geographically and linguistically), it was but natural that Florida will become the hotbed of resistance to Fidel Castro’s regime. For more than 40 years, the exiles in Florida have indeed carved out an industry of rebelling against Fidel Castro, starting from the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 to pressurising the US Government to maintain its embargo and sanctions against Cuba.

Due to a quirk in American electoral law, Florida is very important in presidential elections and without exception, all US presidents have kowtowed to the Cuban exiles and its policy towards Cuba, irrespective of the damage caused to US interests. The cost to the USA has been high, from loss of economic interests, to a completely mucked up Central American policy, hatred towards the ‘norteamericano’s’ by Latin America and has skewed USA’s viewpoint to anything south of the Rio Grande. This policy has upset its allies (recall the situation around the Falkland War and how the UK got upset with USA’s studied neutrality) and has kept a bunch of geriatric exiles, frantically clutching its faded dreams alive while the world has moved on. The economic cost has been high, the sugar subsidies and the environmental policies in Florida are simply amazing, all which can be traced to the pernicious influence of the Cuban exiles in this state.

The tragedy is that Fidel Castro’s repressive regime is kept alive because of this resistance and he has outlasted all the US presidents who waged war against him. Still, aside from some generalised moans from the Americans about how the Cuban exiles have hijacked American Foreign policy, it is rare to see Americans actually taking a step back and seeing the true cost of its Cuban policy. The second generation of the Cuban exiles are now coming into power and the resistance policy is now slowly dribbling away. The second generation does not really care that much about Cuba as their parents did, just like I have an intellectual interest in Bangladesh but not an emotional one as my father does. See what I mean?

India had a similar problem with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the militant group fighting for independence from Sri Lanka. Because of the tight relationship between the LTTE and Tamil Parties in Tamil Nadu, and the history of separatism between the Tamil Nadu state and India, India turned a nelson’s eye on the activities of LTTE and its armed training camps in Tamil Nadu. This resulted in the complete confusion in its Indian Ocean policy, a humiliating exit and fatalities with the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the former Prime Minister and general incompetence. It took the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi for India to turn its face from these LTTE goons and that has lots to do with the current hesitant peace process which is in place in Sri Lanka. India clamped down hard on the training camps, chucked out all the terrorists, increased naval patrols, changed its active and aggressive foreign policy toward Sri Lanka to one of studied neutrality and even leaning towards the Singhalese Government. Frankly, this latter policy seems to have paid more dividends than the previous one.

The Palestinians are another group which have got into trouble with their hosts. Actually, the propensity of the poor Palestinians to rile up their hosts is legendary. They have gotten into trouble with almost every country they have based themselves in. Jordan’s King Abdullah was assassinated by a Palestinian in 1951, King Hussein was plagued by the intransigence of the Palestinians with attempted coups galore, such as in 1957 when the King managed to scotch an uprising and attempted coup by the Palestinians. Just like the situation in Bhutan, the Palestinians used Jordanian territory to launch attacks against Israel proper with the inevitable repercussions by Israel on Jordan. The King tried to stop this, even to the extent of stopping the Palestinian militants from crossing over from Syria, but to no avail. He even broke off diplomatic relations with Syria and because of the hijacking of the Jordanian policies by the Palestinians, King Hussein ended up losing the West Bank and Jerusalem to Israel in 1967. After this, the situation between the Palestinians and Jordanians degenerated rapidly and it ended with a full fledged civil war, with the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine being unceremoniously chucked out of Jordan by 1971.

Lebanon was another country which suffered from the Palestinian tender affections. The civil war between the Christians and Muslims in Lebanon was exacerbated when the Palestinians took the side of the Muslims and also used Lebanon as a base to attack Israel. Needless to say, the obvious thing happened, Israel retaliated, took the side of the Christians and invaded Lebanon. This invasion meant that the Palestinians were kicked out from Lebanon. Between the civil war, the Palestinian presence and the Israeli invasion, the country which was one of the most progressive in the Middle East, was simply devastated. They were also kicked out from Kuwait after the first Gulf War ended and are also in deep trouble in current day Iraq with the Iraqi’s getting a bit cheesed off at Saddam’s patronage of the Palestinians. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who have been helping the Palestinians since 1948 is suffering from aid withdrawal because of the presence of Palestinian militants in the refugee camps. Egyptians look upon Palestinians with a jaundiced eye after jumping through hoops for them, losing large chunks of territory, men, economic gains and international influence, and think of them as an ungrateful lot. Just recall how the visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher was treated when he visited the al-Asqa Mosque. He was attacked by a group of Palestinians pelting shoes at him. The Tunisians heaved a sigh of relief once the PLO took off from Tunisia and went back to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. So, there you go, another group which overstays its welcome and starts stinking up the place.

Then we come to the current situation in India. These three groups, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) and the Kamatapur Liberation Organization (KLO). have operated against India for the past decade or more, blowing up bridges, attacking economic and civilian targets, carrying out hit and run attacks against Indian security forces, and then melting back into the mountainous areas of Bhutan and Assam in the North Eastern corner of India. They are agitating for an independent homeland. Their respective arguments for independence is not relevant here, but Bhutan has been trying to negotiate with these groups for the past SIX years. The last time the Bhutanese were in action was almost 140 years back when they fought against the British and was defeated in the process. Bhutan is in an extremely difficult position. It is totally landlocked, almost totally reliant on India for its existence and very poor to boot. Its army comprises of two parts, the regular army and the royal body guards. The regular army comprises of very light infantry, mostly used for ceremonial purposes, while the royal body guards are trained and oriented totally differently. India runs a military training camp in Bhutan but the Bhutanese army is still nowhere capable of taking on a group which is this large.

Let us also not forget the limitations placed upon Bhutan because of the mountainous terrain. Given the very limited transport links, the high passes, single roads, severe lack of all weather roads; it is very easy for a very small bunch of committed terrorists to totally cut off Bhutan’s access to India. Bhutan’s jugular is very narrow indeed. The six years of talks were desultory and were not going anywhere fast. Bhutan couldn’t act decisively, the Indians already had their fingers burnt before and finally, the militants were stuck with no other place to go. Bear in mind, they couldn’t go to Bangladesh after the wholesale massacres of the Bengali migrants in Assam. The situation is still very unclear, but for all intents and purposes, the 30 odd rebel camps were overrun.

So what prompted Bhutan to take this drastic action? Well, just like King Hussein of Jordan, who was faced with a stark choice between his regime’s survival and support for the Palestinians, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck’s regime is now threatened by the Maoist underpinnings of quite a lot of these groups. Yes, sir, Communist terrorism is well and truly alive in India. They have been openly threatening to overthrow the monarchy, just like in Jordan and in Nepal.

So what happens now to these groups? They can’t go to Bangladesh because of the history of massacring Bangladeshi migrants in the North East of India, they can’t stay in India, they can try to go to Myanmar but that is getting progressively difficult as Indian-Myanmar relations improve dramatically, China is totally uninterested in them – the common Maoism ideology notwithstanding. This leaves Nepal as a potential safe haven but not for long as India has almost as much influence over Kathmandu as it has over Bhutan. Plus the communication lines between Nepal and Assam and other NE states will be too long. If Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee is smart, he should offer them a way out but just before a general election and with all attention towards Pakistan, it is doubtful that these groups will get a way out. We are also seeing a similar situation brewing in Pakistan but that is for another day and another column. Are you listening General Musharraf or are your ears deafened by the truck and bridge bombs against your cavalcade?

What lessons can we draw? Nation/States can become hosts for militant groups, either reluctantly or enthusiastically. They are mostly parasites on the host state but as long as the amount of blood sucked is minimal, their presence is tolerated. Its when these groups threaten the viability and/or existence of the host nation/state that they overstay their welcome; and are unceremoniously chucked out even to the extent of waging war. Because if the host nation doesn’t, it will either get overthrown, or it will be forced to do so as we saw in the case of Afghanistan. Nation/States, who use these militants and terrorists as a soft option for carrying out their foreign and military policy, are just storing up trouble for the future. The guests start to stink and soon fumigation is required.

All this to be taken with a grain of salt!