Damning the politics of peace : The fear card
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 19 2011 -

The loud report of gunfire that was heard at the vicinity of the places where Chief Minister O Ibobi was supposed to inaugurate some of the administrative infrastructures for Sadar Hills a few days back rang out a message that was pregnant with the real understanding of any peace deal or truce pact that the Government, both at Delhi and Imphal, may have inked with some groups that hitherto may have been waging a bush war against the State.

Politics of peace or the price that one has to pay but which comes under the camouflage of a peace deal ?

In as much as the group responsible for letting go the volley of gunfire may have their own reason to open fire, albeit without intending to hurt anyone, it is also incumbent on the part of the Government to answer certain questions so that doubts, if any, lingering in the minds of the people may be put to rest either by confirming the doubt or by setting aside the reasons for the doubt.

The security forces, which undoubtedly have an important stake in the peace quotient, too need to answer certain questions. Not that these questions have not been raised earlier.

Nagaland and the Naga inhabited areas of Manipur will surely understand as well as appreciate the merit of these questions which have raged in the minds of the people but which nevertheless have never been raised vocally, for reasons that must be obvious to all.

Kangpokpi and the other places where the Chief Minister was supposed to inaugurate the administrative structures are all understood to come under the influence of groups which have already inked the Suspension of Operation pact with both Delhi and Imphal. Preliminary rounds of the talks have already started and even the designated camps of the groups have been mostly set up.

Ground rules have been scripted and dos and don'ts charted out. The heavy sound of gunfire that preceded the arrival of the Chief Minister to the said areas could not have been the handiwork of any rag tag army of desperadoes and herein lies the interesting question of who or which group could have been behind the act.

The answer could be anyone's guess but it brings into focus the very understanding of peace pact or truce call, which may be known under different names and terms. Clearly the understanding of peace runs much more deeply than the mere question of the guns going silent or a conglomerate of armed groups inking a peace deal with the Government.

There are reasons why ground rules are part and parcel of any peace pact or truce agreement between the Government and the armed groups. This explains why there is something called the Ceasefire Monitoring Group as well as a Ceasefire Monitoring Cell in the peace process between the NSCN (IM) and the Government of India.

The basic idea of laying down the ceasefire ground rules revolves around the need to ensure that the armed cadres do not move around in arms among civilians. Designated places are set up for the cadres of the armed organisations to deposit their arms and munitions.

It may not be pronounced as vocally but the underlying intention of charting out such arrangements is to rein in the activities of the armed cadres. Such an arrangement is not unique to the case of the peace process struck with the NSCN (IM) but is the overall characteristic of all the pacts inked with other groups and this includes the groups under the SoO pact.

It is also the same thing with the Rajkhowa group of ULFA, the two factions of the DHD as well as the latest entrant of another group from the Bodo community in Assam.

The terms of any peace pacts or ceasefire agreements and the accompanying ground rules are inked between the groups concerned and the Government, whether at the level of the State or Delhi, but the interesting part is the violations of any of the clauses of the agreements do not seem to affect the signatories of the deal but the people.

This is what the history of all peace pacts has driven home with a force that is hard to understand. Harder still is the obvious inaction of the Government when the ground rules are violated with such abandon so much so that it amounts to nothing less than granting a license to some of these armed cadres to flex their muscles whenever they want.

Such a flagrant violation of the terms and conditions of the truce pact cannot be simplified as the acts of some recalcitrant cadres.

On the contrary it smacks of the emergence of a distinct political culture where peace is there to be milked for the benefits of only the signatories, never mind the fact that the deal was arrived at on behalf of the people in the first place.