KCP elucidates geostrategic factors
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, April 14 2024: The banned outfit KCP has elucidated the geopolitical and geostrategic factors which have been allegedly prolonging the violent conflict between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities.

A statement issued by KCP politburo standing committee chairman Ibungo Ngangom asserted, "It is also beyond any doubt that the systematic prolongation of the ongoing violent conflict between the Meetei/Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities has a number of geopolitical and geostrategic factors, owing to which the Government of India has not only remained a mute spectator, but also turned a blind eye to all the evil activities and designs of the Kuki-Zo narco-terrorist elements" .

The Government of India is fully aware of the fact that the success of the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, which also carries geostrategic ramifications for India, is now heavily dependent on the 'overall cooperation' of certain Myanmar-based armed insurgent groups sharing close ethnic and ideological ties with the Kuki-Zo community in India, it said.

Moreover, with the military junta in Myanmar now confronted with an existential challenge, the Government of India cannot just afford to underestimate the importance of such Myanmar-based armed insurgent groups in denying China, India's arch rival, a direct access to the Bay of Bengal, which is apparently the ultimate military goal in terms of its India encirclement policy, it said.

So despite the fact that the vast majority of the Meetei/Meitei community are officially considered Hindus and almost the entire Kuki-Zo people are Christians, the 'all-powerful' Hindutva-driven Government at the Centre has had to develop and deploy an apparently pro-Kuki strategy in response to the ongoing inter-communal conflict in Kangleipak as anything to the contrary is bound to have adverse economic and geostrategic implications for India in the Kuki-Chin-Zo regions of Myanmar, Ibungo Ngangom said.

Despite the multitude of external factors in the ongoing inter-communal conflict in Kangleipak, an effective and meaningful resolution can only emerge from an honest and direct dialogue between the two warring communities, he continued.

It is extremely important that the civil society organisations of both the warring communities accept how hard and difficult life has become for the general populace of both the communities since May 3, 2023 so that the ice can be broken with the acceptance of that critical fact, according to the KCP leader's statement.

It asserted that the two communities have to meaningfully address each other's genuine concerns.

If the Meetei/Meitei community feels the need to seek a fair correction of the skewed land distribution among different communities in Kangleipak, there cannot be any justification whatsoever for other communities to even feel threatened by or oppose it.

Today the Meetei/Meitei community remains demographically and economically hemmed in within the small valley of Kangleipak, notwithstanding the fact that it has a recorded history of over 2000 years of existence as the predominant community of the land.

So it is humanly natural for the Meetei/Meitei community to strive to break the unjustified 'constitutional' barriers erected in the wake of the Indian annexation of Kangleipak in 1949 and regain its access to the hills of Kangleipak, it said.

It is also important to note that the Kuki-Zo community in Kangleipak are not supposed to oppose any rightful demands of the Meetei/Meitei community just for the sake of opposing or on the pretext of being an economically backward tribal community, all the more so because there are more poor Meeteis/Meiteis in Kangleipak today than the actual bonafide Kuki-Zo population of Kangleipak, i.e.those who arrived in Kangleipak before 25 October 1949, which, if assessed on the average decadal population growth rate, should be around 16% of the total population of Kangleipak.

So both the warring communities have to accept that the ongoing conflict cannot be meaningfully resolved without first swallowing the relevant truth no matter how bitter it may be.

Every community has to prioritise peaceful coexistence, which should also involve helping address each other's genuine concerns and achieve rightful aspirations.

In the context of the ongoing inter-communal conflict in Kangleipak, the Kuki-Zo narco-terrorist elements have apparently had an upper hand in the cyberspace because they most likely had a comprehensive plan to dominate the cyberspace and do whatever possible to demonize and discredit the Meetei/Meitei community there with the help of self-seeking pseudo-intellectuals, journalists and professional content managers.

So in order to effectively counter the anti-Meetei/Meitei propaganda in the cyberspace, there has to be an unrelenting coordinated cyber campaign at community level, it said.

Though the Meeteis/Meiteis have often been blamed for barbaric acts in the ongoing inter-communal conflict, many unthinkable acts of barbarism on the part of the armed Kuki-Zo elements have already come to the fore.

Yet, the Meeteis/Meiteis should never try to match or surpass the Kuki-Zo community in the area of barbarism, it continued.

"In the course of the ongoing inter-communal conflict and also in the face of extreme provocation, my comrades have never targeted, hurt or killed any unarmed civilians of the Kuki-Zo community, or destroyed their properties, for that matter.

However, the KCP will continue to hunt for the Kuki-Zo narco-terrorist elements until they are completely wiped out from the sacred soil of Kangleipak", Ibungo said.

When the Meetei/Meitei community has come to be confronted with an existential threat, there are also some Meetei/Meitei trade and transport syndicates who have consciously acted against the non-negotiable interests of their own community just for the sake of their personal monetary gains.

These anti-community syndicates have actually become a major regular source of funds for many organisations, including Kuki-Zo narco-terrorist groups.

What is even more unfortunate is the fact they regularly pay the ethnicity-based groups like the NSCN(IM) multiple times more than the organisations representing Kangleipak as a whole.

For example, the betel leave syndicate annually pays over 10 crore rupees to the NSCN(IM) alone just to be allowed to transport its betel leave consignments through the latter's strongholds.

This is just one example.

There are also numerous other basic commodities like cement, oil and even food supplies, for the transport of which such trade and transport syndicates pay those ethnicity-based organisations and make them even more and more powerful at the cost of the people of Kangleipak.

What is even more unfortunate is the fact that the government of the day has apparently been hand in glove with these ethnicity-based groups, all of which are in one or the other format of talk with the Government of India.

Considering all the diabolical realities around the existence of these trade and transport syndicates, the KCP will now start handling these self-seeking syndicates with an iron hand, the chairman added.

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