E-Paper
Ulfa quiz for 'free Assam'
How politically conscious are you to reside in a sovereign Assam, as envisaged by the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa)?
How politically conscious are you to reside in a sovereign Assam, as envisaged by the United Liberation Front of Asom (Ulfa)?
If you aren’t, here’s a quiz – straight from the outlawed outfit’s monthly online English newsletter named ‘Freedom’.
Since it added cyber firepower in its arsenal over a decade ago, the Ulfa has bombarding its online mouthpiece – the Assamese version is ‘Swadhinata’ – for political reorientation. Volume 11 Issue 13 of the e-newsletter for January 2010 has the usual threats and ideologues; it also has the quiz novelty.
Sample these: Which is the youngest member-state of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries? What is the capital of Bolivia? What is the currency of South Africa?
The mouthpiece mailed by the Ulfa’s “central publicity department” provides the answers too: Angola, La Paz and Rand. The spellings, though, aren’t in order.
If the questions have a certain slant, so does the section on abbreviations in the mouthpiece. PRC is People’s Republic of China, BIT is British Indian Territory and FSM is Federal State of Micronesia.
The mouthpiece, however, avoided the Ulfa’s popular abbreviation – OIF. This expands to Occupational Indian Forces, the outfit’s term for the armed forces it has been combating to ‘liberate’ Assam since its formation in April 1979.
