Dimapur, July 25 (MExN): The Working Committee, Naga National Political Groups (WC, NNPGs) today asserted that the ENPO matter must not devalue Indo-Naga Political issue.
There should be no strings attached as far as Indo-Naga political issue and ENPO demands are concerned, it asserted.
To this end, the WC, NNPGs made it “very clear to ENPO leaders at all levels that Indo-Naga issue is a political and historical issue inclusive of Nagas Nagaland, ‘Naga people and land’ in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh Manipur and Myanmar.
However, the GoI-ENPO talk is primarily to relook, fix and compensate the economic deprivation of six Naga tribes of ENPO by Nagaland state government in the last many decades, it maintained.
The resolution of the Indo-Naga political can adequately address these grievances of the Eastern Naga area and therefore priority must be accorded to inking the Indo-Naga political Agreement, it added.
The WC, NNPGs also cautioned the State Government against using the ENPO issue as a pretext to divert attention from the impending Indo-Naga solution.
“As it is, WC, NNPGs and GoI have concluded the negotiations and therefore ENPO should not address Naga historical and political matters because highly regarded and acknowledged leaders from among ENPO tribes have been integral part of the Naga negotiating team,” it added.
To buttress its stand, the WC, NNPGs accused a group of people, “mostly retired politicians and bureaucrats” from the Eastern Naga People's Organisation (ENPO) area, who allegedly drafted and submitted a proposal to the Government of India (GoI), that included two points with serious repercussion, among others.
It included an alleged point that once the ENPO issue is resolved with GoI, national workers from region would be “made to surrender along with arms” and their leaders “provided with one licensed arms each.”
Again, the WC, NNPGs claimed that the proposal said that “all ENPO areas along Myanmar border will be fenced and sealed in order to prevent insurgents, drugs, arms smugglers from indulging in cross border illegal activities.”
However, it asserted that half of Nagas are living in “our ancestral land in Myanmar and under negotiated terms, free entry and exit of Nagas from both India and Myanmar, a huge extension from the current Free Trade Regime (FTR) was negotiated and agreed upon.”
Hence, it posed whether a wall further dividing “blood brothers and sisters living across arbitrarily demarcated boundary in Myanmar” can be made.
The two points are antithetical to the Indo- Naga political aspiration, the WC, NNPGs stated adding that the ENPO people in particular and Nagas in general must have clarity on this issue before it is too late.
There seems to be “tacit understanding among former politicians from ENPO area, collaborating with Indian agents, to devalue the negotiated ‘Agreed Position’ between GoI and WC, NNPGs,” it further alleged.
Accordingly, the WC, NNPGs stated that its stand on the ENPO demand has always been pragmatic and consistent.
“WC, NNPGs would welcome all GoI and ENPO initiatives whereby, priority sectors such as infrastructure, health sector, education and human resources development sectors must be developed on a war footing,” it said, adding that region has been much neglected over the decades by the state government and also by the ENPO elected representatives themselves.
The allocation and distribution of developmental activities in ENPO area is pathetic and grievous and all Chief Ministers have failed to understand that development and economic progress of ENPO people will fuel economic growth and strengthen social fabric of all Nagas, it added.
