US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Peace in Nagaland remains elusive as ever

Mrinal Talukdar in Kuhxu, Nagaland

The hope of a lasting solution to the 50-year Naga problem appears slim with the unity move between the two warring National Socialist Council of Nagaland factions having run into a deadend and the Centre hardening its stand on the question of sovereignty for Nagaland and the demand for a Greater Nagalim.

G K Pillai, joint secretary at the ministry of home, told a television interviewer last night that the question of sovereignty and the NSCN's Greater Nagalim demand were not negotiable.

NSCN General Secretary Th Muivah told reporters categorically that sovereignty and a Greater Nagalim remained their main demand and they would not budge an inch.

With both sides sticking to their stand, July 31 has become even more significant as the two-year cease fire expires that day.

The NSCN (I-M) has rejected the idea of unity, refusing to accept even the existence of the Khaplang faction, describing it as a creation of the Union government and the Indian army.

''The Naga people are with us, there is a group which is being patronised by the government and arms supplied by the Indian army'' Muivah said in his maiden press conference recently.

His deputy and convenor of the cease-fire monitoring cell, Colonel Phungting Shimray was more forthcoming. ''Even if the whole world wish, can India and Pakistan ever become one forgetting and forgiving everything in the past? Moreover, it is you who created the faction and now you are asking when the unification is possible."

The NSCN (I-M) has declared a general amnesty for all those who were working against it.

But the Khaplang faction seems to have a vocal supporter in S C Jamir, the Nagaland chief minister. He has sought to give importance to the fact that recently, various insurgent groups of the north east like the United Liberation Front of Assam, the United National Liberation Front and even the outfits of Tripura have grouped themselves into the Indo-Burma Revolutionary Front under the chairmanship of the S S Khaplang of the NSCN (K) who is a Myanmarese.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report