Kuki memo of 2013 opposed border fencing
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, July 25 2023: Some Kuki organisations, including Kuki Inpi (KI) of Manipur, Assam and Nagaland, reportedly opposed construction of the border fencing between India and Myanmar when the Government of India (GOI) initiated the process to seal Manipur s.ector of the international border.

Way back in 2013 when the GOI initiated process for border fencing along Myanmar border, the Kuki Inpis 'of the whole region' co signed by 'Kumpi' A Lenthang and Holkhomang Ha-okip, and Kuki Organisation for Human Rights, Manipur appended by chairman Dr T Lunkim, submitted open memorandum to the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and erstwhile president of Myanmar General Thiensen strongly opposing construction of border fencing.

In the open memorandum submitted to Manmohan Singh and General Theinsen on September 23, 2013, the Kuki Inpi and Kuki Organisation for Human Rights said that the proposal of constructing boundary wall in the middle of the particular 'Independent Hill Country' will be comparable with that of Berlin Wall in Germany.

Berlin Wall makers might have a good reason and made the wall but the proposed boundary wall in 'Independent Hill Country' has no cogent reason.

Accordingly, the indigenous Kukis will never allow either division of their land or separation from their ancestral land, the memorandum said.

Both the Kuki Inpi and Kuki Organisation for Human Rights voiced strong concern when the then external affairs secretary Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty made a statement regarding construction of border fencing and even demanded retrieval of the statement while warning that iron fencing wall in the midst of innocent indigenous people in the region of 'India's northeast and Bay of Bengal' would end up in loss of thousands of lives.

Both the Kuki organi-satiohs also claimed that the British government in the 'Independent Hill Country' had never ever had constructed boundary fencing wall and allowed indigenous people of the region movement without any prohibition.

The open memorandum of Kuki Inpi and Kuki Organisation for Human Rights submitted in 2013 also said that at least 38 Kuki villages within one kilometre on either sides of the international border will be affected when iron fencing wall is constructed along the 398 km stretch Manipur Sector of international border between India and Myanmar.

The two Kuki organisations also warned that construction of fencing wall without the consent of the indigenous people of 'Independent Hill Country' will accelerate the insurgency torn buffer zone into a war between armed indigenous people and fully armed India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Later, the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights also submitted similar memorandum to presidents of India and Myanmar on October 11, 2013.Copies of the memorandum,were also submitted to the then UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon and UN Human Rights Commission.

Notably, the then Mizoram chief minister Lai Thanhawla even wrote a letter to the then President of India Pra-nab Mukherjee on November 1,2013 extending support to the Kuki Inpi and Kuki Organisation for Human Rights in their opposition to border fencing.

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