Plebiscite call picks up velocity
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, March 17 2011:
The call for plebiscite to resolve the Indo-Manipur conflict is steadily gaining momentum with a public meeting endorsing earlier resolutions adopted during similar public meetings that people should be taken into confidence while resolving the conflict situation.
The public meeting held today at Keithelmanbi community hall under the aegis of the Keithelmanbi Bazar Board on "Indo-Manipur Conflict and People's Participation in Resolving the Conflict" resolved that all cases related to Manipuri people arrested outside the State in connection with insurgency including UNLF Chairman Sana Yaima should be transferred to the Government of Manipur.
To send the resolution of the meeting to the United Nations and other international human rights bodies with an appeal to facilitate resolving the Indo-Manipur conflict was another resolution of the meeting.
UCM vice-president Yumnam Nabachandra and general secretary of the All Manipur Bar Association Advocate Y Priyokumar addressed the meeting as resource persons.
Nabachandra said that India was pursuing an expansionist policy by annexing small kingdoms soon after the British left the sub-continent.
At that time Manipur already had an elected Government with its own constitution, he further said.
Not long after, Manipur was forcibly merged with India after the then head of Constitution king Budhachandra was forced to sign the Merger Agreement at Shillong in 1949 under duress, Nabachandra alleged.
This sowed the seeds of insurgency and it ultimately led to the present conflict situation though some middle class people with narrow political perspectives celebrated the merger.
Whereas the insurgency movement has been intensifying, there have been many untoward incidents since imposition of the infamous AFSPA 1958 .
AFSPA brought nothing positive to the people of Manipur except unleashing murder, torture, rape and molestation, he asserted.
Rather than suppressing insurgency movement, the AFSPA has only strengthened the same armed movement.
Asserting that the conflict between insurgents and security forces can be viewed as conflict between Manipur and India, the UCM vice-president noted that the conflict situation has been causing untold misery to the people.
He went on to claim that the only way to resolve the conflict is plebiscite.
Advocate Y Nabachandra while recalling landmark historical events of Manipur, asserted that the present politico-military conflict is a direct consequence of the alleged forged merger of Manipur into India.