http://www.assamtribune.com/ From the Assam Tribune:
ULFA urges US to remove terror tag
From Our Staff Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 20 � Fearing reprisal, the outlawed ULFA has written to US President George W Bush and pleaded for removal of the terror tag, regretting the incidents of bomb blasts in the State which it described as tactical error. Even as ULFA and Government of India are wrangling over the �core issue�, its chairman, Arabinda Rajkhowa recently wrote a long letter to the US President, lamenting the branding of the outfit as Other Selected Terrorists Organisation (OSTO).
Highly placed sources in Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) quoting reports from Bangladesh, said that the ULFA has regretted the incidents of bomb blasts in the State particularly the Dhemaji blasts that left over 13 people including six
children dead.
The ULFA chairman described the bomb blasts as tactical blunders on their part. But at the same time claimed that these incidents were aberrations and not what their movement was all about. He claimed that ULFA was basically fighting for independence of Assam from India and not indulging in terrorist activities, sources said.
On this ground, the chairman pleaded that US Government should take out ULFA from the list of OSTO. Soon after the US move, ULFA had reacted by claiming that it was a US ploy to attach a �terror tag� to the outfit. �The inclusion of the ULFA in the list of terrorist organisations by the US is another attempt by vested interests to put the terror tag on the outfit�, ULFA chairman had said in an e-mail message.
The US State Department on April 27 released a Country Report on Terrorism 2004 naming the designated Foreign Terrorist
Organisation (FTO) and OSTO. Designation by State Department results in the US Government blocking assets held in US financial institutions, denying its members visas, and making it a crime for US citizens or others within US jurisdiction to provide it with support or resources.
That apart, US normally puts pressure on countries extending support to any outfits designated FTO or OSTO to act against it. Action could lead to anything from freezing of accounts of individual members of the outfit to their detention.
Official said that the US move has shaken ULFA badly and the outfit may be under pressure of Bangladesh, which itself is also under pressure of the US to act against Jehadi elements and terrorists outfits operating out of the country.
The same Country Report on Terrorism had passed critical remarks on Bangladesh. �Bangladesh supports the global war on
terrorism but its ability to combat terrorism is undermined by weak institutions, porous borders and limited law enforcement capabilities and debilitating infighting between two major political forces,� the Report had said.
The US State Department Report further commented that Bangladesh was committed to enforcing UN Security Council resolution and actions related to terrorism including identification and freezing of assets of individuals and organisation designated as terrorist or terrorist supporters.
The Report said that Bangladesh tradition of moderate Islam was increasingly under threat from extremist alternatives, already offering an alternative breeding ground for political and secretarian violence.
Endemic corruption, poverty and a stalemated political process could further contribute to the type of instability and wide spread frustration that has elsewhere
provided recruits, support and safe haven to international terrorist groups, it said.
US is working with Bangladesh and providing technical assistance in strengthening police institutions, enhancing banking capabilities to combat terrorist financing, strengthening border control systems to detect suspicious terrorists.
The State Department report, had said that, �ULFA procures and trades in arms with other North-East Indian groups and receives aid from unknown external sources.�
Described ULFA as North-East India�s most prominent insurgent group, an ethnic secessionist organisation, the Report said that ULFA began to lose popularity in the late 1990s after it increasingly targeted civilians, including a prominent NGO activist (Sanjoy Ghosh). �It lost further support for its anti-Indian stand during the 1999 Kargil war,� the State Department said.
In 2003, ULFA
killed more than 60 �outsiders� in Assam, mainly residents of the bordering State of Bihar. On August 14, one civilian was killed and 18 others injured when ULFA militants triggered a grenade blast inside a cinema hall at Gauripur in Dhubri district. The next day, at an Indian Independence Day event, a bomb blast in Dhemaji killed an estimated 13 people, including six children and injured 21, the report said.
The US State Department said that the ULFA trained, financed and equipped cadres for a �liberation struggle� while extortion helps finance military training and weapons purchases. ULFA conducts hit-and-run operations on security forces in Assam, selective assassinations and explosions in public places.
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