At 12:34 PM +0530 1/9/07, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
C'da,
I have talked to a lot of people in Assam (Guwahati). All of them
are pretty much ashamed of ULFA's wonton action against a group of
poor, unarmed laborers.
*** Tell me something I don't know Ram.
But I am curious about why THEY are ashamed? What did THEY do? It
would be good to know if they are FINALLY ashamed of their inability
to see what is going on, ask the right questions--like the ones I
presented, and take a stand on what could bring an end to it.
I think you are asking too much of GOI (or of any government in any country)
*** GoI is NOT a god or even a demi-god, infallible, omniscient! It
is made up of imperfect men, MUCH MORE imperfect than the people in
this forum. They are further compromised by their DISCONNECT from the
realities of Assam. Disorganized and unable to deliver on the most
rudimentary of their responsibilities, they are and shall remain
inconsequential. If Rajen meant what he wrote yesterday, and I have
no reason to believe he did not, he confirmed just that.
So WHY should you or I speculate on and give any respectability or
weight to what GoI can accept or not, on its own volition? It is NOT
for you or I to provide COVER for GoI's misdeeds and failures. Or is
it?
That leads me to ask YOU Ram, whether GoI should SEEK a peaceful,
negotiated political settlement to end this escalating bloodbath,
knowing as you do, that there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that
GoI will EVER provide the SECURITY Rajen demands or you hope and all
the shamed Assamese wish for?
*** That alone will demonstrate YOUR commitments to peace. Not your
speculations on GoI's willingness or abilities. Because if GoI
possessed those qualities, we would have seen RESULTS.
There can be NO EXCUSES here.
*** You can preach to the choir till Kingdom come, but that will
leads one to nowhere. But if you can ask the questions you need to
ask on GoI's fifty plus years of army operations in the NE, and ask
what it has PRODUCED, and then put your thinking cap on to assess if
more of it -- STAYING the COURSE -- is the answer; then that might
lead to your being able to contribute something to a solution.
Otherwise you too remain a part of the problem and deserving of the
shame that you report on.
Take care.
c-da :-)
>*** You ask a good question. But a far better question would be to
ask WHAT has Indian armed forces' actions and >inaction wrought for
Assam and its contiguous areas over these last 50 plus years of
warfare?
>Has it made things better for the people, or worse?
I think you are asking too much of GOI (or of any government in any
country). ULFA cadres dressed up as Indian Army personnel in some
remote places, talked to the Biharis in Hindi, separated the Nepalis
from the Biharis (Reminds one of Germans separating Jews), blind
folded them and then shot them point blank. So much for their
bravado, principles, and their cause.
There can be NO EXCUSES here.
The GOI armed forces cannot man or control each and every remote
corner of Assam. And if they did, a number of people would be
jumping up and down that Assam is being militarized.
It almost looks like some would apparently want the ULFA to regroup
and giving them a free hand in the their killing spree.
--Ram
On 1/8/07, Chan Mahanta
<<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Rajen:
> the way I see it is a complete failure of the GOI Security and
Intelligence in the highly insurgent infected area in upper
Assam >where the Central GOI Security is spending crores of rupees
and killing and harassing the loacl youths in the name
of >insurgency control for last 20 years.
*** You ask a good question. But a far better question would be to
ask WHAT has Indian armed forces' actions and inaction wrought for
Assam and its contiguous areas over these last 50 plus years of
warfare?
Has it made things better for the people, or worse?
Has it helped resolve the conflicts or has it escalated it? And if
it has escalated it, should they STAY the COURSE, GWB like? And
should Assam's intelligentsia, as represented by assam netters
tacitly support the process India has pursued all these decades,
fruitlessly, and worsening the problems by many folds?
*** Anyone who has half a working brain, knows, or should know,
that there is no way the corrupt Indian army led by even more
corrupt and inept civilians, will never be able to prevent the kind
of mayhem and which continues unabated as we speak. And sure as the
coming of seasons the military will again be out ULFA hunting, with
open-season on the people in the backwoods of Assam. The cycle will
repeat with the violence ratcheted up one more notch.
So, would the fiery blather and 'gaali' spouting from Duggal,
Jaiswal, the fat Governor, Umesh, Sandip and others make a gnat's
a-s' worth of difference?
Netters take a wild guess.
*** The only solution is to negotiate a political settlement. And
that is what thinking people would and should help promote anbd
raise their voices in demand of.
At 10:17 PM -0600 1/7/07, Rajen & Ajanta Barua wrote:
>We want to tell the world how insecure we are, despite staying
next to the National Highway on which hundreds of army and police
vehicles pass everyday," said Lalit.
>Longsowal is on NH 37, just 20 km from Tinsukia town and six km
short of Doomdooma. There are two police stations on the highway on
either side, roughly four to five km apart.
>Army convoys move out almost everyday from the 2 Div Hqs at Dinjan
to various places, including Arunachal Pradesh.
Besides condemning the inhuman killing, the way I see it is a
complete failure of the GOI Security and Intelligence in the highly
insurgent infected area in upper Assam where the Central GOI
Security is spending crores of rupees and killing and harassing the
loacl youths in the name of insurgency control for last 20 years.
Just think of it, how it can be, somebody killing people in broad
daylight in front of the eys of the security personal. This is not
possible unless the security personal themselves are corrupt and
giving a bloind eye to the killing. The GOI security should be held
accountable for this lapse of securirty and they should pay
compensatation for the deaths, and must gueanty that this type of
lapse of secirity will not happen again.
Rajen Barua
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>umesh sharma
To: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 4:59 PM
Subject: [Assam] IE: Assam latest developments
<http://www.indianexpress.com/story/20397.html>http://www.indianexpress.com/story/20397.html
The latest attack, which took place around 8.30 pm, raises the death
toll to 55. Tinsukia district alone accounted for 34 deaths while
eight were reported from Dibrugarh. Six persons were also killed in
a village in Dhemaji district on the north bank of the Brahmaputra
across Dibrugarh.
In Longsowal, 20 km from Tinsukia, the anger is rising. People are
yet to cremate the bodies. "We want leaders from Bihar to come and
see what has happened to us," said Virendra Gupta, who survived
because he had gone to Tinsukia on some work.
Jaiswal had to face the ire of the residents, most of them from
Bihar, who earn their living by running petty shops for tea garden
labourers. "The minister kept repeating that he would go and tell
the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister. We do not want
assurances. We want action, adequate compensation," said Lalit who
sells clothes, roaming villages on a bicycle. They have demanded Rs
10 lakh for each of the dead and Rs 3 lakh for the injured, and jobs
for the affected families.
The bodies of the dead, all in wooden boxes covered with ice, are
being guarded by the residents, waiting for a team of ministers from
Bihar. "Yes, we want to block the road. We want to tell the world
how insecure we are, despite staying next to the National Highway on
which hundreds of army and police vehicles pass everyday," said
Lalit.
Longsowal is on NH 37, just 20 km from Tinsukia town and six km
short of Doomdooma. There are two police stations on the highway on
either side, roughly four to five km apart.
Army convoys move out almost everyday from the 2 Div Hqs at Dinjan
to various places, including Arunachal Pradesh.
"If we are unsafe, imagine what would be the state of our people who
live in remote chapories (winter river islands) on the Brahmaputra,"
says Radheyshyam Prasad, another shopkeeper, who claims that the
Longsowal cluster of Biharis go back to three generations. "We may
be of Bihari origin, but we belong to this place. Our ancestors came
during the days of the British," said Jainarain, a shopkeeper. Rekha
Kumari (8), daughter of Parsuram Prasad, who was shot in both legs
and is now at the AMC Hospital in Dibrugarh, said the militants
entered their house by breaking the bamboo door. "They barged in
with guns and opened fire. I got shot on both legs and the abdomen,"
she said.
Other Bihari clusters, like Ghoramara Chapori, are also soft
targets. "It is far away, about 20 km from the nearest police
station. You cannot reach that place without crossing several
channels of the Brahmaputra," says Tinsukia SP Prasanta Bhuyan.
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park,
(Washington D.C. Metro Region)
MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
weblog: <http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/>http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
website: <http://www.gse.harvard.edu/iep> www.gse.harvard.edu/iep
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