Paying the price of too many players : Rebel without a cause ?
- Sangai Express Editorial :: November 28 , 2013 -

Not the time for niceties or beating around the bush but to call a spade a spade and weed out the chaff from the grains.

No one can monopolise patriotism or love for one's land and the people but the emergence of numerous armed groups, each at logger heads with each other, battling for turf is an undeniable indication that there are elements out there who are under the impression that they can go ahead with their own agenda under the legitimacy of 'patriotism'.

Pseudo patriots, there are a dime a dozen in Manipur today and the people of Manipur have been paying a heavy price due to the emergence of such groups.

In the beginning it was the in valley area, where the people had to face the brunt of the presence of numerous armed groups, mostly breakaway groups and today this has spread to the hill districts, particularly the Naga dominated areas.

The Suspension of Operations inked with the numerous Kuki armed outfits and with the numerous groups, each professing the name KCP followed by a suffix, coming forward for a political dialogue, have to a certain extent blunted the sting of the presence of numerous armed groups in the valley area and Kuki dominated places, but this trend has now spread to the Naga dominated areas today on a scale never seen or witnessed before.

The series of bomb blasts at least 8 such blasts that occurred at Ukhrul district headquarters in the last 75 days or so tells the story of the emergence of different armed groups.

At the last count, there were about 10 armed groups operating in Ukhrul district including the dominant IM faction of the NSCN. Tamenglong witnessed this trend before Ukhrul, when the Zeliangrong United Front announced its arrival with a bang some years back and ambushed a party of the NSCN (IM) leading to deaths and injuries.

It has not stopped and there have been confrontations or encounters between these two rival factions in the recent past, the latest being the shoot out near Lukhambi Part-I or Khumji village which is located about 7 kilometres from Noney police station in Tamenglong district on November 26.

One ZUF cadre killed is the end result of the latest confrontation and there is no reason to believe that it will stop here.

"We will, from now on, do what is needed." A one line statement from the information secretary of the ZUF which does not need rocket science technology to decipher what was left unsaid.

This is Manipur and though we do not have the figures, it would not be surprising if factional clashes or rival groups clashing with each other have claimed more human lives than in encounters with the security forces.

An indication that the numerous armed groups, which ironically took up the guns to fight the Government of India and its security agencies, see their rivals or factions as the greater danger.

A situation thus created that the people today are no longer caught between armed groups and the security forces, but also increasingly between the different factions and rival groups, which have mushroomed all over the place.

A natural question that follows then is, if and when any of these groups decide to go in for a political dialogue with the Government, then on whose behalf are they going to negotiate with either Delhi or Imphal ?

Who has mandated them to talk on behalf of the people, with so many groups out there each claiming that they represent the interests and aspirations of the people ?

On numerous occasions, the people have come out in the open to denounce what they call fratricidal killings or confrontations, but till date there have been no overwhelming positive responses from these groups.

The question is on whose behalf have they taken up the guns ?

Rebelling without a cause, but taking up the guns to make some quick money could be the case for some of these groups.