India’s
Myanmar Policy
Inconsistency Reaps a Disquieting Harvest.
The Central
Investigation Department of the Assam Police is on the lookout for
Rajiv Rajkonwar. Under his alias, Arobindo Rajkhowa, Rajiv is
one of Assam's most dreaded and most well known names. He heads the
United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) a secessionist organization
that has lost all popular support due to a string of brutal
terrorist acts that had almost paralyzed the frontier Indian state.
Rajiv, who heads the terrorist-secessionist outfit, had trained
under either the Kachin Defense Army (KDA) or the Kachin
Independence Organization (KIO).
Ever since the Burmese government sponsored ceasefire agreement with
the KDA, the KIO and other tribal armies like the Eastern Shan State
Army and the United Wa State Army, these organizations have enjoyed
significant political independence. Some of them have now extended
their influence to areas previously occupied by the Mong Tai Army
(MTA). Due to political exigencies necessitated by the need to
maintain the territorial integrity of the Burmese State, the Burmese
Government has found it extremely difficult to restrain these groups
on two fronts- the international trade in opium and heroin and
international arms trafficking. The agreement between the Myanmar
Government and the KDA was reached in January, 1991 and that with
the KIO in October,1993.The KIO was allotted Kachin State Special
region (2) which has a common border with India.
It must be noted here that the position of the Kachins in the
Burmese Union has always been slightly problematic. Although Kachin
delegates had participated in the Panglong Conference, no decision
was taken on the the issue of a separate Kachin State. In addition,
the Panglong Conference had postponed till later any decision on the
hotly debated issue of granting states the right to secede from the
Union. Kachin was invaded by China and it was only after the border
agreement in 1960 that the state had reverted to Mayanmar's control.
Kachin insurgents had been active since 1948 when Myanmar became
formally independent. However, even prior to independence, Kachin
had been a special administrative unit that was ruled separately
from British Burma. Kachin has been well known to be one of the
world's premier poppy producing areas. Though international pressure
has prompted the military government at Yangon to take steps to
curtail the production of poppy, the lucrative ness of the trade and
the general irresponsibility of the various factions have meant that
poppy production remains unabated and there has been no significant
decline in the export of opium from Myanmar. Myanmar's opium
production is second only to Afghanistan's.
For India, however, the more serious issue is cross-border
terrorism. It is known that former insurgent groups in Myanmar, and
notably, the KIO and KDA,(now recognized as part of Myanmar's
legitimate body politic) have made a lucrative trade out of gun
running across the border with India. These groups have also allowed
the setting up of training camps for terrorist outfits like the
ULFA. Though there have been agreements between the Indian and
Myanmar sides on policing the 1600 mile Indo-Burmese border and
fighting insurgency, these agreements have been honored more in the
breach than in the keeping with India perceiving the Burmese side as
falling short of their obligations. A serious impediment to the
working out of an effective arrangement to check cross-border
insurgency is India's continued support to the pro-democracy
movement in Myanmar. While there was a slight tilt in India's
foreign policy toward working out bilateral cooperative arrangements
with Myanmar in the areas of cross-border terrorism and bilateral
trade, this policy has never been consistent. Yangon's improved
relations with China and its friendship with India's arch rival
Pakistan are viewed with suspicion by New Delhi. This has meant that
India's support for the pro-democracy movement, though less vocal
than in the early nineties, still continues.
This policy of conflicting priorities adopted by New Delhi has meant
a failure both, in terms of the perceived national interest in
checking insurgency along the Indo-Burmese border and in terms of a
India's image as an advocator of human rights and democracy. There
are no estimates of the Burmese refugee population in India.
However, unofficial figures put the total number of ethnic Chin
refugees in Mizoram alone at more than 40,000. Only a very tiny
fraction of actual refugees have been granted official refugee
status. India's attempts to improve relations with the repressive
regime in Yangon also raises serious questions about the treatment
of Burmese refugees in India. A Human Rights Watch report of 2000
raised these question with respect to the treatment meted out to
Chin refugees who were detained in Mizoram by the State police on
grounds of illegal entry. The fact that Indian law does not formally
distinguish between illegal immigrants and refugees is a hindrance
and does not bode well for the thousands of Burmese refugees who
have already fled Myanmar and are currently residing in India
without a formal refugee status. The lack of a formal legal status
and a conscious government policy towards Burmese refugees as for
example has been the case for Tibetan refugees, has also helped
fostering and sustaining ethnic tensions between refugees and
indigenous tribes in certain states like Mizoram. In most such
strife, the refugee population has to fend for itself and cannot
expect or demand any legal aid.
On the other hand, symbolic support for the pro-democratic movement
of the kind that resulted in the discontinuation of the joint cross
border insurgency operation "Golden Bird" in 1995 due to a
withdrawal by the Myanmar side following the conferment of the
Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Justice on Aung San Suu
Kyi, is not helping the law and order process in the insurgency
infested North Eastern States of India. The current Indian defense
minister George Fernandez is known to be a committed supporter of
the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar at the personal level. For
example, Myanmar dissenter Soe Myint accused of hijacking a Thai
plane to Kolkata in 1990 has been living in Mr. Fernandez'
residence. Mr. Fernandez' personal philosophy, however, has not
translated to public action at the formal level of policy framing
and implementation.
In the meantime , the narcotics trade from across the border
continues with Indian insurgent groups resorting to it as a prime
source of finances. Poppy grown on the Indian side of the border is
transported into Myanmar for refining and the refined heroin either
finds its way to Thailand or is routed back into the Indian states
of Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram and Meghalaya. In the North _east
of India, the narcotics trade and insurgency are close allies with
insurgents selling heroin to procure arms. The losers from New
Delhi's foreign policy mess are the law and order process, helpless
thousands of Burmese refugees and thousands of addicted youth in the
north-east Indian States. It is time New Delhi acted to remedy the
situation through a consistent and well thought out policy program.
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India’s
Myanmar Policy