Sinlung

18 July 2011

ULFA Peace Talks in August

By Prabin Kalita

Guwahati, Jul 18 : After two failed attempts in the past, the much-awaited dialogue between the government and Ulfa is likely to begin next month in New Delhi, Centre's interlocutor for peace talks in Assam P C Haldar said on Friday.

"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.

India

17 July 2011

More illegal Immigrants From India Crossing US-Mexico Border

Napolitano: At some point this year, border-jumpers from subcontinent will account for about 1 in 3 non-Mexicans caught in Texas

Image: U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents patrol along the Rio Grande

Eric Gay / AP

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents patrol along the Rio Grande near Wednesday, on June 8, 2011 in Penitas, Texas. Between October 2009 and March 2011, U.S. Border Patrol detained at least 2,600 illegal immigrants from India, a dramatic spike.

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, WILL WEISSERT

LOS FRESNOS, Texas, Jul 17 : Police wearing berets and bulletproof vests broke down the door of a Guatemala City apartment in February hunting for illegal drugs. Instead, they found a different kind of illicit shipment: 27 immigrants from India packed into two locked rooms.

The Indians, whose hiding space was furnished only with soiled mattresses, claimed to be on vacation. But authorities quickly concluded they were waiting to be smuggled into the United States via an 11,000-mile pipeline of human cargo — the same network that has transported thousands of illegal immigrants from India, through Central America and Mexico and over the sandy banks of the Rio Grande during the past two years.

Indians have arrived in droves even as the overall number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. has dropped dramatically, in large part because of the sluggish American economy. And with fewer Mexicans and Central Americans crossing the border, smugglers are eager for more "high-value cargo" like Indians, some of whom are willing to pay more than $20,000 for the journey.

"Being the businessmen they are, they need to start looking for ways to supplement that work," said Rosendo Hinojosa, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector, at the southernmost tip of Texas, which is the most active nationwide for apprehending Indian nationals.

Between October 2009 and March 2011, the Border Patrol detained at least 2,600 illegal immigrants from India, a dramatic rise over the typical 150 to 300 arrests per year.

The influx has been so pronounced that in May, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate committee that at some point this year, Indians will account for about 1 in 3 non-Mexican illegal immigrants caught in Texas.

Most seek jobs
Most of the border-jumpers are seeking jobs, even though India's economy is growing at about 9 percent per year. Once safely inside the U.S., they fan out across the country, often relying on relatives who are already here to arrange jobs and housing.

Indians have flooded into Texas in part because U.S. authorities have cracked down on the traditional ways they used to come here, such as entering through airports with student or work visas. The tougher enforcement has made it harder for immigrants to use visas listing non-existent universities or phantom companies.

Also contributing to the spike was a quiet change in travel requirements in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras. Beginning in 2009, those nations sought to attract investors by allowing visitors from India to enter without visas.

Mexican authorities have been unable to stop smugglers from moving illegal Indian immigrants over their country's southern border, then north to Texas. Instead, Mexico asked neighboring Guatemala to restore the visa requirement for Indians, which it did June 6.

Still, the lack of a visa requirement allowed at least 8,300 Indians to enter Guatemala and fewer than 28 percent of them exited legally, according to Enrique Degenhart, director of Guatemalan immigration. The others disappeared to continue heading north.

Indeed, the group of Indians police discovered in Guatemala City eventually went free because, at the time, they were in Guatemala legally.

Meanwhile, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras still don't require visas for Indians, meaning smugglers can shift routes and use those countries as alternate jumping-off points for the journey north.

El Salvador's director of immigration, Ruben Alvarado, said officials have begun quizzing arriving Indians about what Salvadoran tourist sites they intend to visit in an attempt to spot those entering the country simply to head north.

Claim persecution
Indians caught by U.S. authorities often claim they fled their homeland because of religious persecution. Then they wait for months in federal detention centers like Port Isabel, in the town of Los Fresnos, about an hour's drive from the Texas-Mexico border.

On a recent morning at Port Isabel, young Indian men wearing navy blue detention uniforms filled the benches in Immigration Judge Keith Hunsucker's courtroom. Sixteen of the 32 cases on the docket were Indian immigrants, including Salimbhai Mansiya, from the state of Gujarat, who had been detained more than a month earlier.

Through an interpreter, Mansiya told the judge that he needed more time to find an English speaker who could help him fill out an application for asylum. The judge ordered his case delayed.

The Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review received 951 requests for asylum from Indian nationals between October and March — a six-month tally nearly equal to 1,002 asylum requests received from Indians in all of fiscal 2010.

Some seeking asylum can arrange to have their bond paid and are set free. Then they melt into American society and skip subsequent court dates. Immigration courts eventually order them deported, but only in absentia.

Many of those detained in Texas hail from Indian states such as Punjab and Gujarat, places that are relatively prosperous and where it's common for people to seek greater fortunes abroad even if they are financially secure at home.

Bid for status?
Pramod Kumar, a political scientist at the Institute for Development and Communication in the Punjab capital of Chandigarh, said immigrating to other countries is an important regional tradition that's even reflected in folk songs.

If people face dire economic straits, "you try and sell your land and go abroad," Kumar said. "If you're prosperous, still you go abroad because, culturally, it gives you a higher status."

Many immigrants take jobs driving trucks or taxis or working on farms. Initially, the pay is not substantially greater than they would make back home, but simply living in the West elevates their social standing in India. And over time, their earnings increase, Kumar said.

Smugglers often move their cargo from India to Mexico via intermediate stops such as Hong Kong and Macao and other parts of China, as well as Singapore, Amsterdam, Ecuador, Brazil, Belize and Panama.

The pipeline shuffles Indians north using the same "plazas," or corridors, preferred by cartels moving drugs into the U.S., Hinojosa said.

Source: AP

India

India in Waterworld As Monsoon Revives [Photos]

Many places in north India became large waterworlds as the southwest monsoon was back with a bang. But a few places are still praying for rain.