Naga youths take out silent march in New Delhi
Source: The Sangai Express / Ninglun Hanghal

Imphal, October 25 2010: Impatient over the long drawn peace process between the GOI and NSCN, hundreds of Naga youths in black shirts took out a silent march from Delhi's Jantar Mantar to Parliament street calling for an outcome of the 13-year long peace talks.

In the press hand out distributed at the occasion, the silent marchers stated that the peace talk was welcomed with much enthusiasm and hope for the Nagas to finally live with dignity and to ascertain their own destiny.

Yet, as it stands today, the youth and the Naga community at large feel that the peace talks had not yielded any substantive result.

Instead it has come to a standstill without any sign of a tangible solution, the handout said.

Naga youths during the protest demonstration at New Delhi

It also noted that Government of India, while claiming that it recognizes the unique history and situation of the Nagas, has failed to show political will and decisiveness to arrive at a political solution, even after the Nagas proposed a model of solution under "special federal relationship' with GOI.

the GOI attempting to derail the peace process at critical juncture through calculated provocations and infringements, it opined.

It also stated that while Nagas and their leadership, continued to believe on the political negotiation, the GOI has tested and taken patience of the Nagas for granted; GOI has failed to honour "primary gist of the Amsterdam Joint Communiqu�, declared on July 11, 2002, on which the political negotiation would carry forward and solution to be arrived at.

One of the participants in the silent march, James Pochury, a human rights activist, who spoke to this correspondent, said that the Ceasefire Monitoring Cell created in 1997 had laid down a non negotiable guidelines .

On the matter of the GOI breaking the peace agreements, the activist pointed out that there are several occasions like the Siroy Seige of 2009 and continued implementation of AFSPA in the areas inhabited by the Nagas, while the valley areas of Imphal in Manipur had been lifted.

The latest breached of trust being the arrest of Anthony Shing � an NSCN leader from Kathmandu airport in September 27, 2010 by India's National Investigation Agency, who was on his way for the peace talks in Delhi.

According to Pochury, the basis for the peace talks should begin from the people and should be a dialogue process, on a win-win situation.

The peace marchers also submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to take the Indo � Naga peace process seriously and reminded that the Government of India has in letter and spirit failed to honour and recognized the political nature of the Naga issue for which the peace talk is indispensable.