Numerous Bombs Explode in Assam, India

Yesterday, a dozen or so bombs went off within an hour of each other in the Indian state of Assam. At least 70 are dead, including 5 who were slain in front of the District Magistrate’s Court of Guwahati, the state’s capital city. While a Muslim group has claimed responsibility, authorities believe the bombings were part of a campaign by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a pro-independence group committing violence since 1979.

If it turns out that the bombings really were executed by the Islamic Indian Mujahedeen, then India has another problem with which to deal. The Indian Mujahedeen apparently did carry out a series of synchronized bombings in Delhi six weeks or so ago that killed 20 and wounded hundreds.

But that isn’t how the authorities are reading it. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the state's Minister of Health, told the Press Trust of India, “It is very early to make a conclusion but ULFA has a history of triggering serial blasts. Most of the bombs were planted in crowded places like markets and office complexes. So it shows that the perpetrators wanted high casualties.”

Jeremy Page of The Times reported, “ULFA has been fighting for an independent Assam since 1979, accusing the federal Government of plundering the region's tea, timber oil and coal resources while neglecting basic infrastructure and services. Now wedged between Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and Myanmar, Assam was an independent kingdom for more than six centuries until its conquest by the British in 1826. When India won independence, it was one of the country's three wealthiest regions. Today it is one of the three poorest states, even though it produces more than half of India's tea and 17 per cent of its oil.”

In other words, the Assamese separatists have an economic grudge as well as an historical claim to independence. That doesn’t necessarily make them freedom fighters any more than the Indian Mujahedeen is. In fact, yesterday’s bombings are just as much terrorism as the bombings in Baghdad. This journal agrees with Tarun Gogoi, the Chief Minister of Assam, who said, “This is an act of cowardice . . . designed and carried out to spread terror.”

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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