Mizzima News

New Delhi (Mizzima) – A senior Indian Army officer has been quoted by the Indian media as saying that north-eastern rebels are setting up base camps in Burmese territory, some of them with the sanction of local authorities. 

Lt Gen NK Singh, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 3rd Corps based in Rangapahar Military Station in Nagaland in Northeast India on Thursday said Indian rebels have different kinds of camps - transit camps, permanent camps and training camps in neighbouring Burma.

NK Singh, during a press interaction, told journalists that some of the rebel groups’ camps have been set up with permission of the local authorities, according to the Manipur-based Hueiyen News Service.

The GOC, however, said the Indian Army has brought the issue to the notice of various levels of the Burmese authorities and that they have been very “supportive and cooperative.”

India and Burma have maintained military-to-military relations aimed at increasing cooperation between the two armies in dealing with issues including border security, drug and insurgency. The 37th biannual meeting was held in Kalemyo of Sagaing division of Northwest Burma in late August.

Sources along the border said, Indian rebel groups including the United National Liberated Front (UNLF), have long set up base in several areas in Western Sagaing division and Chin State. Both are contiguous to Indian states of Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

Several high-ranking members of the insurgent groups are also into business ventures including gun running and drug smuggling, in a nexus with local Burmese officials, the source said.

Sources said, though Indian rebels have long been based in Burma, their presence and freedom in renting houses and running business enterprises was further exposed by an incident in December 2008, where a Manipuri rebel was killed in his rented house in the border town of Kalemyo in northwest Sagaing division.

Sources, who request anonymity, in the area told Mizzima that the man was shot dead by a fellow Manipuri, who was also believed to be a member of a rebel group.

India, at various levels of their meeting with Burmese officials, had repeatedly sought cooperation in flushing out northeast rebels from the neighbouring soil.

The GOC, during the press interaction, did not rule out launching a major operation with the cooperation of the Burmese authorities to flush out the rebels of the northeast in Burma.