POLITICS-INDIA: Violence Marks New Ceasefire With Tribals

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jun 19 2001 (IPS) - Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s coalition government is under mounting pressure to revoke the extension of a ceasefire with separatist Naga tribals to areas outside Nagaland state in India’s turbulent northeast.

On Monday opposition to the territorial extension of the ceasefire, announced last Thursday, took a violent turn in Imphal, capital of Manipur state which adjoins Nagaland, forcing police to open fire and clamp an indefinite curfew on the city.

The United News of India (UNI) news agency reported from Imphal that at least seven people were killed and scores injured in the firing.

According to television reports, a 2,000-strong mob led by students stormed the state assembly building and set it ablaze, seriously injuring the Speaker, Sapam Dhananjoy Singh and several legislators in the process.

Monday marked the last of a three-day general strike to protest the agreement called by the powerful All-Manipur Students Union (AMSU) which has also demanded the resignation of all 60 members of the state assembly and the state’s three members in the federal Parliament.

Manipur has a sizeable Naga population and is the state worst affected by the widening of a four-year-old ceasefire between the army and the powerful, Isak-Muivah faction of the militant Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM).

New terms for the ceasefire were signed on Jun 14 in Bangkok where the leader of the NSCN-IM, Thuingaleng Muivah, is facing trial for having entered Thailand on forged travel documents.

Since then protests have been building up not only in Manipur but also in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Mizoram from where the NSCN-IM operates bases and has been in constant conflict with local police.

The NCN-IM has also been providing support to a host of separatist militant groups operating in the north-eastern states, according to interior ministry officials.

But the worst fear of Nagaland’s neighbours is that the new agreement would ultimately pave the way for the creation of an independent Nagalim or Greater Nagaland, which is the avowed aim of the NSC-IM.

Assam’s chief minister Tarun Gogoi rushed to New Delhi on Friday to make his apprehensions regarding the territorial integrity of his state known to Union Home Minister L.K. Advani.

Gogoi told reporters that the Congress party government he leads in Assam was not consulted on the new terms of the ceasefire and said he expected the central government to look after security issues.

But Advani reportedly assured Gogoi that the Jun 14 agreement did not in any way endorse the idea of a Greater Nagaland and that the central government was prepared to deal with any violation of the ceasefire.

The Congress party has opposed the widened ceasefire, with party spokesman Jaipal Reddy saying that it would not help solve insurgency in Assam.

In a statement, the Communist Party of India – Marxist, (CPI- M), which rules eastern West Bengal and Tripura states, said the agreement was fraught with dangerous consequences and threatened the territorial integrity of the region.

Demands for withdrawal of the agreement with the NCN-IM have also come from Chaoba Singh, a member from Manipur in Vajpayee’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and currently minister of state for food processing industries.

Singh reminded home minister Advani that the multi-party, NDA’s common minimum programme was specifically committed to maintain the territorial integrity of Manipur and the other northeastern states.

Opposition to the ceasefire agreement has come from the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), a militant group which has been fighting for an independent Assam state.

“Under no condition will the ULFA and the people of Assam negotiate on the present territorial boundary of Assam. The North Cachar area of Assam (dominated by Nagas) is the ancestral homeland of the Dimacha-Kachari people and is an integral part of Assam,” the outlawed group said in a statement.

The Nagas themselves comprise more than 20 distinct tribes as well as numerous subtribes of Indo-Burmese origin, each having a specific geographic distribution. Many of the tribes had a reputation for head-hunting.

In the 19th century, with the advent of British rule, Christianity was introduced, and Baptist missionaries became active in the region. As a result, the Nagas are now predominantly Christian.