GUWAHATI, JAN 11: Even as the Union Home Ministry on Tuesday said the Government had not received any proposal for talks from the ULFA, a prominent Assamese writer and editor on Wednesday said the militant group had indeed recently sent a feeler to the prime minister through him.
Revealing this, Homen Borgohain, editor of Amar Asom and president of the apex literary body in the state, the Asom Sahitya Sabha, added that it was he who had conveyed the ULFA’s feeler to the PMO, though it was turned down.
"It was about a month back that a gentleman I know well approached me and told me that he had brought a message from the ULFA and that the leaders of the militant group wanted it to be conveyed to the prime minister. He told me that the ULFA had also revised its earlier pre-conditions and was interested in talking on just one issue, that of sovereignty," Borgohain wrote in a signed article on Wednesday. The ULFA’s three pre-conditions were talks should be on the issue of sovereignty of Assam, talks should be held in a foreign country and there should be a UN observer during the talks.
Borgohain said that while he passed on the message to the PMO that very evening, "the answer was in the negative, with the PMO telling me the next day that the government would not like to talk on the issue of sovereignty".
Meanwhile, a New Delhi report published on Wednesday quoting Home Ministry sources has said that the Centre was aware of the ULFA dropping two of the three pre-conditions and that "under the circumstances, the Government would be willing to talk to the ULFA." According to the story, the spokesman said the Government had not received any feelers, it was only reacting to ULFA armed wing chief Paresh Barua’s recent interviews in some Assam newspapers. Barua had apparently said the group would negotiate if the Naga talks yielded some results. The Prime Minister had in April, 1998, extended an open invitation to all militant groups of the Northeast.
Borgohain said in his article that the man who approached him "is one of those persons whom the ULFA had relied upon when Hiteswar Saikia was in power too and had played an important role in establishing contact between the rebel group and the government."
"He also told me that there was a basic difference between the ULFA’s earlier proposal," Borgohain said.
Borgohain has said in his article the government would not lose anything, but would stand to gain if talks were begun even on the issue of sovereignty. "The first gain would be that the government would get an opportunity to talk face to face with the ULFA leaders. And secondly, if the talks fail, then the government can easily put the blame on the militant group," he said, but not before adding that the government should now impose a pre-condition, that both ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa and armed wing chief Paresh Barua should be present during the talks.