UNC plans mass rally, skip R-Day
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, January 16 2014 : The United Naga Council (UNC) is planning a mass rally in all Naga district HQs on January 23 in protest against the manner with which the Government of Manipur has been handling the tripartite dialogue process and lack of will on the part of Government of India to proactively facilitate the process.

A presidential council meeting of the UNC held today further decided to stay away the Republic Day programme.

Ban on construction work of Trans Asian Railway line and 400 KV Power Grid transmission line and also closure of State district offices simultaneously for a period of 6 days with effect from February 3 to 9 were other resolutions of the meeting.

A statement issued by UNC said that the democratic process of dialogue on the demand for an alternative arrangement for the Nagas in Manipur outside the Government of Manipur (GoM) pending settlement of the Indo-Naga issue, which has been put in place by the Government of India (GoI) has been left in the limbo by GoI and GoM.

The last tripartite talk of the GoM, UNC and the GoI, which took place on the August 30, 2013 at Delhi agreed that the process would be up-graded to the political level and the next round would be held within two months time.

This has not happened.

The GoI vide its letter dated 13th December, 2013, on the reminder of this fact from the UNC had informed the GoM to indicate its decision in the matter at an early date.

The presidential council of the UNC, in its sitting held on 20th December, 2013 had decided in good faith to wait and watch till the 2nd week of January, 2014.No further communication has since been received till date.

"While we have upheld the democratic process of dialogue with respect and expectation of the resolution for which the dialogue process was initiated, the manner in which the process has been treated with disrespect by the State Government and the lack of will on the part of the Central Government to proactively facilitate the resolution has eroded our faith in the democratic process and the seriousness of the GoI", read the UNC statement.

On the other hand, the GoM has been giving public statements that dialogue is welcome and issues can be discussed.

This hypocritical posture is further accentuated with the unabated policies of the communal GoM for depriving the tribals of their land by transferring tribal areas to police districts of the Imphal valley and Jiribam.

The jurisdictions of civil administration and the police district are to be co-incident by all considerations of convenience and effectiveness and the ulterior motive behind this nonsensical aberration is obvious.

Educational institutions, Health, Electricity and Water Supply departments would be exempted from the purview of the protest movements.

All tribe councils/regional organisation will enforce the ban on construction and closure of District offices in their respective jurisdictions.

The above civil actions decided upon would be carried out irrespective of whether any communications are received from the GoI on the talk process.

After completion of the same, further actions would be taken up in manners and measures suitable to the emerging situation.

It also called upon the Naga public to be mentally prepared for a long drawn out civil actions in the entire Naga territory and to stock up essentials commodities to meet eventualities.

Any individuals who wilfully defies the scheduled strictures would be doing so at their own risk, it added.

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