SUMMARY
Pakchara R “Champion” Sangma founded the Garo National Liberation Army in 2010. Sangma founded the rebel group after deserting his post with the Meghalaya Police. He created GNLA with the intent to create a separate, autonomous state (within the Union of India) for the Garo peoples of Meghalaya. Since its inception GNLA has clashed often with Meghalaya and Indian law enforcement teams, who have tried to prevent GNLA from “taxing” civilians (especially businessmen and politicians) and punishing individuals perceived to be collaborating with police.
In 2015, several groups in the northeast of India and northwest of Myanmar's formed an umbrella group, the UNLFW. In subsequent years, various groups joined the UNLFW, which, as of 2018, consisted of at least 10 groups: KCP, KLO, KYKL, GNLA, NDFB-S, NSCN-K, PDCK, PREPAK, ULFA (I) and UNLF.
The incompatibilities over India's Assam, Bodoland, Garoland, Manipur and Nagaland were subsumed under the West South East Asia incompatibility. As a result, the conflicts over the the individual territories comprising the West South East Asia territory became inactive in the years in which the main groups fighting over the territory, and consequently contributing to the battle-related deaths threshold for inclusion in the UCDP data, joined the UNLFW. For example, when the groups fighting over the Manipur incompatibility joined the UNLFW, this conflict became inactive, and the fighting has since then been recorded under the conflict over West South East Asia.
IN DEPTH
GNLA: Historical and Cultural Background
The Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA), which emerged in 2010, is composed of ethnic Garos. The Garo peoples (also called the Achik People or Achik Mande) make up an ethnic group comprising several sub-groups with distinct dialects of the Garo language. In medieval times, the Garos migrated to a region which now sits on both sides of the Indian-Bangladeshi border in the north east of the Indian Sub-continent. The core of the Garo homeland lies in the west of the Indian state of Meghalaya and in adjacent, northern portions of the Bangladeshi Dhaka and Sylhet Divisions. The majority of Indian Garos live in the Garo Hills Districts (West, South West, North and East) of Meghalaya, though they can also be found in all the other north-eastern Indian states.
In modern times, Meghalaya has hosted several nationalist, tribal (Garo and non-Garo) rebellions. In the late 1990s, Garo rebels formed the Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC) which fought for an autonomous state for the Garo Tribes. Though fighting between the ANVC and Indian government produced fatalities throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the violence never crossed the UCDP threshold of armed conflict. ANVC members claimed to fight against the domination of the Garo people by other major tribal groups of north-eastern India, including the Khasis. GNLA formed several years after the ANVC signed a ceasefire agreement with the Indian Government in 2004. Reportedly, a number of hardliner, former ANVC members participated in the formation of GNLA. Thus, the emergence of GNLA can be thought of as a continuation of long-running ethnic strife in Meghalaya.
GNLA: Origins and Operations
The Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) officially formed in 2010. In May of that year, the outfit’s founding member, Pakchara R “Champion” Sangma, convened a press conference and formally announced the group’s intention to fight for an autonomous state of Garoland. Sangma clarified that his organization would struggle for an autonomous region for the Garo people, rather than for an independent country. Sangma also claimed that he had turned down offers of assistance from several governmental and non-governmental entities, including Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI).
Sangma, himself, served as a law enforcement officer with the Meghalaya State police before deserting his post to establish the GNLA. Sangma claimed that his superior officers harassed him constantly, and that this abuse drove him to quit his job as a law enforcement officer. It is widely reported that Sangma established the GNLA with the help of several former members of another rebel group, the Achik National Volunteers Council (ANVC).
Sangma’s organization began its operations in Meghalaya; one of several conflict-prone Indian states in the country’s tumultuous North East. The GNLA is one of many rebel organizations to have operated in the North East of India since the country gained its independence in 1947. Like most other rebel groups in the region, the GNLA funds itself through “Taxation” or “Extortion” of civilians. Small groups like the GNLA typically use this source of revenue to secure the approval and logistic support of the region’s most powerful rebel group, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland.
In addition to skirmishing with Indian security forces, the GNLA engaged in one-sided violence in 2012. Though this violence produced less than 25 fatalities, the GNLA killed several individuals it perceived to be engaging in criminality. The GNLA also killed several former fighters who had surrendered to the police. Fighting between GNLA and Indian security forces persisted in 2013,the groups clashed regularly with one another throughout the year. Though Indian security forces inflicted relatively heavy losses on GNLA cadres, the insurgent group reportedly grew in strength and influence in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya State, and in southern Goalpara District in Assam State. GNLA continued to extort money from civilians in these regions.
