NSCN-IM’s Red Herring
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 24, 2014 -
After a gap of more than two years, NSCN-IM announced resumption of formal talk with the Government of India (GoI) on July 16 on 'a positive note' with both sides reportedly agreeing 'to embark on the peace process with renewed and earnest commitment'.
However, not even a week has passed, the two parties appeared to have hit a road block already.
Interestingly, this time, it is not disagreement on the 'core issues' of the sometime hot and sometime cold prolonged peace parleys or on 'the proposal for shared sovereignty' put up NSCN-IM, but on the jurisdiction of the 17 years old ceasefire agreement that the two entities entered in 1997.
A day after Chairman of the Indian side of the Ceasefire Monitoring Group (CFMG), retired Lieutenant General NK Singh stated on July 18 that the jurisdiction of the ceasefire signed between the Government of India and the NSCN-IM is limited to Nagaland only and so he has nothing to say to the activities of the NSCN –IM in Manipur, the Naga rebel group rubbished the claim and insisted that the June 14, 2001 Bangkok agreement still stands and the cease fire is without territorial limits as agreed upon.
This has prompted NK Singh to come up with yet another statement on July 22 to make his stand that the camps of the Naga rebel outfit in Manipur "are not designated camps," but they are rather "taken note of camps' existing as ambiguous legacies of the past.
As we have observed earlier, the latest roadblock in the just resumed 'formal' peace talks between Government of India and NSCN-IM has resulted not from some disagreement on the 'core issues' or the proposal for 'shared sovereignty', but from a rather very insignificant issue, that seems to have been deliberately propped up to act like a red herring to divert the attention from the real issue of its 'repeated, deliberate and frequent serious violations of the Ceasefire Ground Rules (CFGR)".
It is a common knowledge that despite the deletion of the controversial phrase 'without territorial limit' the from ceasefire agreement signed between K Padmanabhaiah, the then interlocutor of India for the peace talks and and General Secretary of NSCN-IM Thuingaleng Muivah at Bangkok on June 14, 2001, the Naga rebel group has very active in Manipur indulging in all sort of activities.
So, whether the jurisdiction of the ceasefire is limited within the State of Nagaland or not, is not such a big issue for NSCN-IM.
After all, ceasefire means ceasefire only, whether the parties involved meet at home or far away.
But by harping on this non-issue, NSCN-IM has only cleverly tried to test and divert the attention of the people from all the unspeakable things like forcible collection of money, illegal demand notices, harassment, intimidation, even rape and molestation carried out by its cadres at home and far away in violations of clause (e) and (i) of ceasefire agreement.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.