Source: Oken Jeet Sandham
Kohima, December 19:
Former Nagaland Assembly Speaker and senior Congress leader, Z Lohe urged the leaders of all Naga underground factions to sacrifice their �egos and pride� for the �sake of their people� if they were really meant for the �Naga aspiration�.
Talking to NEPS here today, the former Speaker reminded the leaders of factions that they were not above the interest of the Naga people and informed that the realization of the Naga people today was that they wanted to know the nature of presenting the case of political issue to the Government of India.
�In other words, the realization of the Naga people is that their desire over sycophancy,� he pointed out.
With regard to the unity call of the NSCN (IM) leaderships to the rival factions, Lohe said the cry of the Naga people was for �reconciliation and unity� because Naga people knew that �unless we have unity, any settlement of the political issue may be another piecemeal settlement�.
�We have had piecemeal settlement in the past which begot only distrust and perpetuation of political issue,� the former Speaker said.
�Therefore, what the Naga people wanted now is the very honorable and acceptable settlement once and for all and, to do this, the basis (of such honorable and acceptable settlement) is nothing less than unity first�.
He, however, explained that such unity move amongst all sections of Naga people should be on the �principles of give and take and forgive and forget---in other words, the question of fifty-fifty.� There should be no stubborn or unforgivable if they wanted to come to agreeable point, he averred.
The former Speaker reiterated the Congress party�s stand since 1998 that �unity amongst the all sections of Naga people� was the prerequisite to the settlement of the Naga political issue.
With this stated policy of the party (Congress), they went ahead to have elections when the rest of the political parties, the NGOs and the underground factions boycotted it (elections) in 1998, Lohe said.