Kuki Inpi opposes creation of 3 councils to settle Naga issue
Source: The Sangai Express

Kangpokpi, October 03 2018: Strongly opposing any move to create 3 councils to settle the Naga issue which was reported in some newspapers, the Kuki Inpi has instead asked the Government to first settle the alleged criminal acts of the NSCN-IM which include murdering of 905 innocent Kukis, uprooting 360 Kuki villages and seizing their land, displacement of more than 100,000 Kukis before settling the Naga issue.

The Kuki Inpi Kumpi, Thangkhosei Haokip and Kuki Organization for Human Rights Chairman, T Lunkim apprised the Prime Minister of India through a representation sent in an email today while a copy each of the representation was also sent to His Excellency Antonio Guterres; the Secretary General, UN, Geneva; Her Excellency Henriksen Roy, Chief, UNPFII and the Excellencies President of Myanmar and President of Bangladesh.

The representation said that the opposition to create 3 councils is not an attempt to sabotage the Government's peace talks with NSCN (IM) but an assertion of the traditional rights and ownership of the land by all the tribal people in the now so called North East India.

It stated that it is crystal clear that the longest war fought for more than 100 years by the then Kuki Inpi (Kuki Govt) during 1761-1919 against the British Colonial Government in India in the West and the then Burma (now Myanmar) in the east to save the ancestral land of the tribals including Manipur, Tripura and Assam had resulted in the 'Inner Line Permit' orders barring entry of non-residents of Independent Hill country on August 27, 1873 .

It also stated that all the North Eastern Hill States, including Manipur and Tripura States were not included either in the political independence granted in 1947 to the colonized India and the then Burma in 1948 while partition of India- as India and Pakistan, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) also did not include the Independent Hill country.

It further said that as a matter of fact after the two kings of Manipur and Tripura signed merger agreement on October 15, 1949, the Government of India paid them land compensation of the valley land that they owned then.

The merger agreement openly declared two historical facts.

Firstly, that all North Eastern tribal region including Manipur and Tripura were not included in Indian political Independence of India in 1947 and the then Burma in 1948 as revealed in the merger agreement and secondly, after two years in 1949 Manipur and Tripura merged with India, but the merger agreement was not inclusive of tribal Independent Hill country areas of Assam, Manipur and Tripura, Chin Hills, Hill areas in Bangladesh, it added.

The Kuki Inpi and Kuki Organization for Human Rights also said that all the tribal ancestral land should be respected and in no ways attempt should be made to grab their land by creating any kind of law under Indian Constitutional law, which may be imposed on the indigenous people.

Importantly, the rights of the owners of the ancestral land must Tse respected and if absolutely necessary talk should be initiated with traditional land owners, the Kuki Inpi (Kuki Govt) in particular which had saved the land with the Anglo- Kuki War, whose chiefs had faced imprisonment in various jails in India and the then Burma for saving the Ancestral land Independent Hill country of the indigenous people including Manipur and Tripura, it added.

It also said that it would not be wise and wrong as well to tag those ancestral land owners defending their ancestral land as undergrounds for they have done what is right to defend their land as had done by the Kuki Inpi against the British Colonial Government in the past (1761-1919) and the land they inhabited has been their own from time immemorial and this ownership of land is their fundamental right as they belong to the Independent Hill country which the British Colonial Government had failed to take away.

"Defenders of the land cannot be tagged as terrorists or undergrounds, and should not be hunted and killed by the thousands one after another and those Governments indulging such act are no less than Colonial expansionists continuing Colonial rule (colonialism) which must be opposed tooth and nail", it added.

It further said that tribal land must be respected and an attempt to take away the land through new and wicked laws would be akin to murdering them while adding that all tribal land owners are united in defending their fundamental Rights to their land which the Kuki Inpi (Kuki Govt.) defended for over 100 years for and on behalf of the indigenous land owners.

The Kuki Inpi and Kuki Organization for Human Rights said that it must be clearly understood that any issue relating to Independent Hill country from Bay of Bengal to China, and in the region between India and present Myanmar cannot be settled with a single community or movement rather all indigenous land owners should be properly consulted, without whose consents any settlement is bound to incite civil unrests in the region.

Comment