Kuki Organisations disturbing tripartite talks, Submits memorandum to PM

The proposed next round of talks among the representatives of the Union and State governments and the United Naga Council (UNC) on Thursday at the district headquarters of Senapati in Manipur are facing rough weather. After an inordinate delay the Union government is arranging the next round of talks. The UNC has been demanding “alternative arrangement” for the Nagas in Manipur contending that the Nagas in Manipur no longer want to stay under the “communal government led by Okram Ibobi Singh”. The earlier talks were inconclusive and infructuous.

Ahead of the next round of talks two Kuki tribal organisations, the Kuki Impi Manipur and the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights, have submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohon Singh saying that the outcome of the talks will not be acceptable to the Kukis in Manipur. Manipur has been the home of the Nagas, the Kuki and the Meiteis for generations. The Naga and the Kuki tribals inhabit the mountains while the non-tribal Meiteis have been settling in the valley districts.

In the backdrop of this memorandum the next round of talks is likely to be perfunctory and lukewarm and may not result even in an interim agreement. But in the past the UNC and other Naga organisations had launched agitations, including shutdowns of the national highways  that are the lifelines of Manipur.

One must know that the Nagas have never claimed the lands which rightfully belongs to the kukis. The alternative arrangement is for the Nagas in the Naga inhabited areas and as such never intervene in the affairs of the Kukis. In contrary to this, one may recall that the Kukis has been claiming the lands which rightfully belongs to the Tangkhul Nagas in Ukhrul District in the form of Sadar Hills.

 

Khaplang out of peace talks

H. CHISHI | The Telegraph

Kohima, Aug. 29: The Khaplang group of the NSCN today decided to pull out of the Naga reconciliation process after its rivals decided not to harbour any rebel group of the region averse to the Naga political cause.

Admitting that the Khaplang group has ties with Ulfa, the Manipur-based UNLF, PLA and Prepak, Kughalu Mulatonu, envoy to the collective leadership of NSCN (K), said from Longwa in Mon district of Nagaland that the Isak-Muivah group, which had harboured many northeastern insurgent groups, today wanted to crush groups opposed to oppression by the Centre to resolve an issue which was “below sovereignty”.

NSCN (K) criticised Khole Konyak, Kitovi Zhimomi and S. Singnya of falling into the trap of the Isak-Muivah group, which, it alleged, was trying to solve the Naga problem with New Delhi by compromising on Naga sovereignty.

The Isak-Muivah and Khole-Kitovi factions of the NSCN and the Singnya faction of the Federal Government of Nagaland (FGN) have decided to form a “Naga national government”, to disengage from all forms of actions detrimental to the political cause of the Nagas and to work for the territorial integrity of the Nagas.

Mulatonu also criticised the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), which had initiated the peace process, for creating the Khole-Kitovi faction out of NSCN (K) in the name of Naga reconciliation although Khaplang, Isak Chisi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah were the first persons to sign the “covenant of reconciliation”.

On the three Naga groups’ decision to form the Naga national government, Mulatonu said it would be next to impossible, as everybody wanted to lord over the other groups.

Asked whether the Khaplang group anticipated joint operations by the security forces of India and Myanmar and other Naga groups if it continued to harbour other militant groups, Mulatonu was optimistic that the “Centre would never indulge in such tactics” as the other Naga outfits had climbed down from their demand of sovereignty to the settlement of more then 60-year-old Naga political issue within the ambit of the Constitution.

“They will never carry out joint operations against us,” he said, adding that the Centre would try to work out some formula with NSCN (K) to solve the Naga political issue.

However, sources at the Delhi-based Burma Centre, who are against the ruling junta in Myanmar, said the Centre had recently supplied sophisticated guns to the junta which usually carries out operations against the Khaplang group in winter.