Peace Process in Assam and the victims

Submitted by admin4 on 14 February 2011 - 5:12pm

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By Anjuman Ara Begum,

The three-decade-long active armed conflict between the Government of India/Assam and United Liberation Front of Assam has called it a day when most of the top leaders of the banned organization came for peace talks that kicked its start with the meeting with the Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on February 10, 2011 at New Delhi. This icebreaking interaction was the result of the acceptance of unconditional talks by the ULFA.

ULFA

ULFA which was formed on April 7, 1979 by Bhimakanta Buragohain, Rajiv Rajkonwar alias Arabinda Rajkhowa, Golap Baruah alias Anup Chetia, Samiran Gogoi alias Pradip Gogoi, Bhadreshwar Gohain and Paresh Baruah at the historic Rang Ghar in Sibsagar to establish a "sovereign socialist Assam" through an armed struggle. The group instantly became ‘Robin Hood’ though later suffered several setbacks for various reasons and for last two years government of India, with the help of neighboring countries, was able to bring them behind the bars. ULFA leaders like Paresh Baruah who pledged opposition to the peace talks and Anup Chetia who is in a jail in Dhaka are still not a part of the peace process and this may became a major ‘challenge’ to the peace initiative.

The Union Home Minister, Shri P. Chidambaram meeting with the ULFA Leaders, in New Delhi on February 10, 2011 (Photo by PIB)

It is pertinent to point here that the term "peace process" can be defined as per the definition constructed by Harold Saunders, that peace processes is a "a political process in which conflicts are resolved by peaceful means. "They are a "mixture of politics, diplomacy, changing relationships, negotiation, mediation, and dialogue in both official and unofficial arenas."

Peace Process & Victims

Over the period of time it has been observed that peace processes after violent armed conflict often don’t include the issues of justice for the victims. Victims and their families are also kept from participating in the negotiation process. This is a grey area as the peace negotiation is between the parties that took part in the conflict and are both past perpetrators. Justice is sacrificed for the sake of peace.

The right to the truth has emerged as a legal concept at the national, regional and international levels, and relates to the obligation of the state to provide information to victims or to their families or even society as a whole about the circumstances surrounding serious violations of human rights. Right to truth is important to ‘fight against impunity, deterring or preventing future violations, satisfying victims’ needs and upholding their rights, removing dangerous political players from the political scene, re-establishing the rule of law and reaffirming the principle of legality’.

Right to Truth

In many African countries truth commissions emerged as a strategy to preserve truth and to seek victim’s right to truth. A truth commission or truth and reconciliation commission that usually aims at finding and discovering or revealing the past wrong doings by the state and by the non-state actors and confessions before these commissions are not for legal proceedings. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established by President Nelson Mandela after apartheid, is popularly considered a model of Truth Commissions. Russell Tribunal, also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal or Russell-Sartre Tribunal, can be cited as another model which was a body organized by British philosopher Bertrand Russell that investigated and evaluated American foreign policy and military intervention in Vietnam.

In North East India, Inquiry commissions were set up on several occasions to find out the truth behind human rights violations by both state and non-state actors. In Assam in particular K.N Saikia Commission on secret killings in Assam, 2007 is well known. The reports of the inquiry commissions are not binding for the government but are to be discussed before the legislature.

In the present context, the ULFA leader’s acceptance for unconditional talks with government for a peaceful solution of the armed conflict is welcome. The leaders of ULFA have also termed and accepted the killings of civilians as “mistakes” and these “mistakes” include the 1997 murder of social activist Sanjay Ghose and the 2004 bomb blast in which several children lost their lives in Dhemaji while celebrating Independence Day. It is already reported in media that preservation of Assamese culture and heavy development packages for Assam are supposed to be figured in the negotiation deal. At this point we should also remember that justice for the victims are an essential part for overall peace process and both the groups in the negotiation table must take into account the sufferings of the innocents during the bloody days of violence. This attention is essential in order to bring peace now and in future. Peace negotiation must be treated as an opportunity for both the combatant parties to rectify the ‘mistakes’ of the past. A truth commission in the above model can be easily considered a ‘package’ in the peace negotiation which would in turn prove vital to discover the truth, at least to heal the wounds of the victims and their families.