Fresh move by Goswami for direct ULFA talks

Nine months after talks between the ULFA-appointed People’s Consultative Group and the Indian Government broke down

Nine months after talks between the ULFA-appointed People’s Consultative Group (PCG) and the Indian Government broke down, noted writer and peace-maker Indira Goswami has launched a fresh move to revive the process, this time trying to press the ULFA to come for direct discussions with New Delhi.

Goswami, who along with a group of eminent citizens of Assam recently floated the Citizens’ Peace Forum (CPF), said there was every possibility of reopening the negotiations, especially if the society as a whole wanted it.

“The citizens’ Peace forum has several prominent and respectable citizens of the state, and this is something different from the People’s Consultative Group,” she told The Indian Express here today. The PCG, it may be recalled, was nominated by the ULFA to open a channel of negotiation with New Delhi in September 2005.

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Goswami said she sincerely believed that the Prime Minister would discuss “all core issues” raised by the ULFA, “because it is possible to find solutions when you really keep talking.”

Talks between the Government and the ULFA-nominated PCG broke down after three rounds, the last being held on June 22 last year.

While Goswami is the president of the Citizens’ Peace Forum, former Assam family court judge Syed Nurur Rahman is the working president of the new body. Over a dozen other members of the forum include noted social worker Suchibrata Roy-Choudhury among others.

“I am there (in the CPF) because I was part of the peace negotiations and I know several important people, including the Prime Minister. The forum is important because it involves citizens who have been witness to various ups and downs in the state in the past few decades,” Goswami said.

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Meanwhile, Syed Nurur Rahman said the Forum members were already working on a memorandum, which would be submitted to the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister as well as to the state chief minister pressing for reopening the talks process to solve the ULFA tangle.

“It is a fact that the Prime Minister had agreed to discuss the core issues. It is also a fact that the Government at one point of time agreed to release five top ULFA leaders so that they could discuss among themselves about holding direct talks. We just want to make a fresh move before more valuable time is lost,” Rahman said.

The Citizens’ Peace Forumwould also generate public opinion to press both Government as well as the ULFA to sit for direct talks, he said. “The innocent people have been the worst sufferers, and it is time citizens exerted pressure on both sides to come to direct talks,” Rahman said.

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