UNLF renews sovereignty pledge-II
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, November 24 2011:
Contd from previous edition .
"Manipur, which is a captive market of India, is neither allowed to die or to prosper.
The wheels of the economy turn on the salaries of the employees and earnings from supply and contract works," pointed out the Central Committee statement with a stark reminder that the economy goes into a wobbly spin when salaries are withheld for four or five months.
The farming sector is relatively free from such gyrations of the economy.
But even this farming sector is unable to generate any surplus as their incomes are drained in purchasing essential items produced by India.
This is thus a revolving door economy without savings.
As a result, the average Manipuri is unable to make both ends meet.
Implying that augmenting production is one of the important factors to tide over from such a perilous situation, it expressed hope that the ongoing 100-plus days economic blockade must have driven home the virtues of self-reliance in food and other essential items while reiterating that only a successful struggle for regaining lost independence can vouchsafe the people of Manipur an escape from the spectre of worsening social and economic malaise.
Further pointing out that globalization is an irreversible trend in contemporary times, it said India's "Look East Policy" manifests this trend in our parts, presaging both opportunities and threats for numerically smaller communities like ours.
The challenge is to prepare ourselves to exploit the opportunities that "Look East Policy" and the irreversible process of globalization might afford us.
That would however depend on our basket of production.
We can exploit the opportunities only if we have a good production base in our land.
Countries without a production base will be no more than transit points.
It would therefore be important to identify and leverage the biological and human resources in selecting and diversifying the production baskets and augmenting production in both the hills and plains.
Additionally, enterprise in the small and medium industries would have to be precisely encouraged.
Therefore, it is extremely important to take steps to multiply entrepreneurs, and provide them the support structures necessary to stimulate and sustain their entrepreneurial spirit.
For this, potential entrepreneurs would need to be identified both in the hills and valley and handhold them in resolving problems�be they of confidence building, or of insufficient funding or of perceived extortion threats from liberation organizations, both real and fake.
Identifying what fields of enterprise are appropriate for Manipur at this point in time, how to develop it, and what problems beset it and how can the problems be overcome are necessary follow-through steps in developing entrepreneurs and concomitantly building the economy for a self-reliant future is the only way to boost the economy, the statement maintained.
With regard to new steps for the liberation struggle, the Central Committee observed that the last few years have witnessed the gap between the organizations espousing liberation struggle and the people.
"In particular, the trust reposed by the people in these organizations are diminishing," conceded the Committee while maintaining that there are various reasons for such a dilution in the revolutionary movement.
By far, though, the single most important reason is the failure of the organizations espousing armed liberation struggle is to wage a concerted fight against the Indian forces.
Next, the substitution of consultation by the use of violence and brute force in the way these armed liberation groups related to the people alienated the latter.
The failure of these organizations to concertedly counter the deliberate policy of driving wedges between the people and organizations spearheading liberation struggles also contributed to the deteriorating relations, it reasoned.
to be contd .
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