By Prabin Kalita
"The peace process entered a new stage after Ulfa announced a unilateral ceasefire (on Tuesday). This is a positive development and we are inching closer to the final stage. We expect the peace talks to start in August," Haldar said.
The former IB chief has been holding peace parleys with the Ulfa's pro-talks faction, led by chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, for a year. New Delhi had appointed him the interlocutor for peace talks with Ulfa in June last year. He is also in talks with the NDFB's pro-talks faction, the Dima Halom Daogah (DHD) and the United People's Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) in a bid to take them to the negotiating table.
On Friday, Haldar held a meeting with Union home minister P Chidambaram and Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi in New Delhi. "The Centre is committed to holding talks with Ulfa. It will be a joint effort by the government and Ulfa to find a solution that satisfies both the sides. The government and the outfit will present their points of views. We will then have to find out ways that will satisfy both the government and Ulfa and ensure peace in the state," the interlocutor told TOI over phone.
"The entire process to find a solution may take some time. Anything done at a breakneck speed may not yield a permanent solution," Haldar said.
On the ground rules and modalities that have to be decided before the talks begin, he said, "The government and Ulfa have to decide how to go about it and ensure that there's no ambiguity in the entire process."
Some of the key areas related to the ground rules which are yet to be finalized are deposition of arms by Ulfa and staying within the confines of designated camps during the peace process. According to the Centre's policy, the talks can be held with any group that has abjured violence. Besides, once the peace process is initiated, the outfit concerned has to deposit its arms and all its members have to stay in designated camps set up by the government in consultation with the group.
However, the Ulfa leadership is firm on not depositing its weapons with police and wants rehabilitation camps with training facilities for its cadres. The Ulfa leadership now has to submit its charter of demands before the peace talks finally begin.
The first Ulfa peace attempt dates back to 1990 when a delegation of the outfit met then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. Led by Ulfa general secretary Anup Chetia, the Ulfa delegation had then agreed to sit for talks with the government within the purview of the Constitution. By doing this, the outfit virtually gave up its demand for a "soeverign Assam", the objective for which Ulfa had been waging an armed struggled since its formation in the later Seventies. However, the militant group out of the process after the first meeting following instruction from its military boss, Paresh Baruah, who did not want to budge an inch from the sovereignty demand.
The second peace bid was initiated by Jnanpith awardee writer Mamoni Goswami in 2005 following the request from Baruah, who later formed a People's Consultative Group (PCG) comprising representatives from the civil society to lay the ground for talks. The PCG, however, pulled out of the process after three rounds of meeting when the Centre refused to call off operations against Ulfa.
In the last one year, since Haldar was appointed by the Centre as the interlocutor, there have been several rounds of talks between him and Rajkhowa, first inside the Guwahati jail and then outside after the Ulfa leaders were released on bail. The discussions initially hovered around the release of the Ulfa leaders to facilitate the peace talks. Earlier this year, the Ulfa pro-talks leaders also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union home minister P Chidambaram in New Delhi and expressed their keenness to take forward the peace process.
The government, on its part, took it in writing from the Ulfa leadership that it would agree to unconditional talks before facilitating their release on bail. The discussions also got the government to informally stop operations against Ulfa militants in favour of talks. It was after several rounds of discussion with Haldar that the Ulfa general council finally decided to declare unilateral ceasefire.
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