Smokescreen emanating from peace pacts : Understanding CSOs
- Sangai Express Editorial :: September 21, 2013 -
The condemnations that have poured in from different civil society organisations over the murder of Jonathan Kashung, a presidential candidate of the Tangkhul Naga Long is a reflection of the smokescreen emanating from the warped understanding of peace and which had clouded the reality at the ground level.
That the civil society organisations have not desisted from naming the NSCN (IM) as the group behind the murder of Mr Kashung, tells many a story.
A story that under the garb of peace, which have been peddled around since August 1, 1997, the outfit continues to impose its diktats on the people.
Jonathan Kashung is not the first man to have been killed by a group, which has signed a peace pact and most probably he may not be the last one either.
An indication that the peace which has been hawked all these years have only meant the guns going silent between the armed cadres of the said group and the security forces.
A peace pact which holds meaning only for the cadres and the Government, sans the people, people like the late Jonathan Kashung.
Sure the group responsible for the killing may come out with a series of allegations and charges to justify the killing or it may just prefer to remain silent in the face of the condemnations that have erupted across the State and in neighbouring Nagaland.
This however is not the core issue.
The core issue is a group which has signed a peace pact with the Government picking up their targets and snuffing out their lives non-chalantly.
So far it is not clear why Jonathan Kashung was killed, but most probably it may be related to the election to the post of the TNL, the apex organisation of the Tangkhul community in Manipur.
A clear indication of armed outfits having a stake in the functioning and working of civil society organisations.
In a conflict situation like Manipur, frontal organisations of armed outfits is a natural fall out and maybe even necessary for they can serve as the middlemen between the Government and the armed outfits in trying to chalk out a solution.
But when this connection takes a turn, a turn as ugly as killings and bloodshed, then maybe the time to draw a line may just be needed.
How the Tangkhul community and the TNL deal with the situation remains to be seen, but this is a litmus test, a test which will determine the political maturity of all the stakeholders.
On the other hand, it would also be wrong to interpret the ugly development as something which is entirely an internal affair of the Tangkhul community.
It should be a matter of concern for all the different communities of Manipur.
Not for any reason is it said that the character and maturity of a people is tested at times of adversity and this is one such time, for it should not only be seen as the abduction and murder of a man by an armed group, but the interplay and relationship between armed groups and the various civil society organisations.
In a place like the North East, Manipur in particular, where there are different competing forces, each with their own political and social agenda, it is extremely important that the role of civil society organisations cannot and should never be subverted by the threats of the guns and violence.
Jonathan Kashung is dead, may his soul rest in peace.
But it should not end here, for in praying for his soul as well as in emphatising with the bereaved family members the larger and bigger lesson, that is the role of the civil society organisations in a conflict ridden State like Manipur should be seen and understood in its correct perspectives.
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