WJP concerned over Black Day monolith
Source: The Sangai Express / Newmai News Network

Imphal, September 16 2018: Women for Just Peace (WJP) has expressed serious disquiet over the monolith erection under the aegis of the Kuki Inpi to commemorate their Black Day on September 13, 2018 .

Women for Just Peace has been around for some time now in the region working for justice and peace which formed by human rights activists and campaigners of different backgrounds and issues.

According to WJP, remembering the deaths is a collective act and memory, and to mourn the loss is natural.

"However, to use the deaths to perpetuate hatred is a dishonor to the memory of the loved ones in whose names the day is commemorated," it said.

The WJP also said that both the communities have experienced a history of violence that cost dearly to the people.

"We recollect what was done to the Naga people by the Kukis from the time the Britishers came to the Naga hills where villages were not only attacked and marauded but were almost wiped out.

Today, these villages have rebuilt their lives and homes.

They remember what was done to them but they do not hold hatred today in their hearts as time, the great healer has allowed forgiveness to find its place," the WJP stated.

It then recollected the Naga-Kuki of 1992 clash that claimed lives of both the Kuki people and the Naga people with great pain "but to hold selective memory of this violence and terming it as a genocide by the Nagas is not only wrong but a dishonor to both the Kuki and Naga people who died during this tragic saga of violence" .

According to the WJP, villages of both the communities were burnt and people uprooted and displaced from their homes.

It also said that civilians from both the communities went through untold sufferings, and families are still nursing the wounds and memories of their loved one who died during the violence and the Black Day commemorations only reopens these wounds and hurt and perpetuates this history of violence.

"To call for justice with compensation or other form will be a disgrace to the deaths and the wounded for such cannot be translated into monetary package, statistics and monolith erections,' the WJP said.

It then said that, to call for justice would mean to find a way together as Naga and Kuki people towards restoring relationships, walking the path of reconciliation and peaceful co-existence.

"It is a challenge to both peoples to remember and honour the deaths but only to build a future that does not harbor hatred, but which resolves to dialogue for a future to which we pass on the baton of love and forgiveness for the generations that will inherit the history we leave behind," the WJP also said, while adding, "It is a deliberate and purposeful choice we have to make and WJP earnestly plea for reconciliation!" .

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