Source: The Imphal Free Press
Imphal, July 29:
The Naga Students� Federation, NSF, has expressed shock at the unilateral decision of the Indian Government to review the Cease-fire Agreement and confine it to the state of Nagaland.
In a press release today, the students body said it is lamentable that, India as a nation with considerable respect in the eyes of the world would backtrack from honoring its commitment and instead chose to listen to the voice of violence.
This is not unprecedented so far as the lack of sincerity from the Indian Government to solve the protracted Indo-Naga political imbroglio is concern the release said.
�The struggle of the Nagas to live together as a people under integrated contiguous Naga areas is spread over many enduring decades.
The struggle is necessitated owing to colonial hegemony and arbitrary dissection of the Naga inhabited areas,� it said.
India should also acknowledge the rights of the Nagas, the NSF release demanded, just as Mahatma Gandhi, the father of Indian Nation, undoubtedly did.
It said several intermittent initiatives have been made to resolve the vexed Indo-Naga political problem.
However, due to the lack of sincerity on the part of Indian government no lasting solution could be brought about.
The so-called Nagaland state was never the ultimate wish of the Nagas.
The NSF said the Nagas are truly with the peace process.
If India choose to ignore the plea of the Nagas spoken with reason and logic but only take cognizance of violence then the Nagas shall also be constrained to change our language, the NSF release warned.
In another development, the Naga Students Union, Delhi, in a letter to the chief ministers of the northeast, expressed its concern on the decision of the GoI to review the Indo-Naga Ceasefire signed at Bangkok on June 14, 2001.It said should the Indo-Naga Ceasefire break down, there would be another cycle of violence and human sufferings in the Northeast.
The consequences will be quite unfortunate for India, the Nagas and the Northeast India, the letter warned.