DIMAPUR, SEPTEMBER 15 (MExN): The Working Committee of the Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs) on Saturday alleged that in recent times there has been a recurrence in kidnapping, abduction and confinement of Naga national workers by the NSCN (IM) at Hebron Camp.
While no fatality has been perpetrated, the WC-NNPGs media cell in a press statement said negative actions such as haphazard abductions and kidnappings, forced labour, physical torture and humiliating treatments under detentions should be avoided at this juncture when Nagas must be working towards celebrating victory of a just cause.
The Working Committee also alleged that money ranging from Rs 15,000 to Rs 1, 00,000 was being demanded from detainees for their release.
“It is unimaginable that Nagaland would become a haven for abductors and ransom seekers in the garb of nationalism where the bona-fide citizens become unsafe in their own land Nagaland. This characteristics do not conform to the principle of Naga brotherhood and fraternity,” it stated.
The Working Committee has therefore demanded that all National workers detained at Hebron camp must be released immediately unharmed at the earliest lest “misunderstanding arises among the Nagas and consequences become too high a price to even imagine.”
It urged those indulging in “such profit making business to think twice before kidnapping or abducting someone's son, father, brother, uncle or cousin.”
At this point of Naga struggle, all sides must make an effort to heal past wounds instead of cutting open the old scars. There would be small destructive minds in any organization, as past reveals, who would play spoilsport to common aspiration. Nagas must be on guard against these elements, the Working Committee went on to state.
It said Naga history should not be shamed again and the “name of Christ and Naga people should not be taken for granted.”
Negotiation with GoI not confined to Nagaland state alone
Meanwhile, the Working Committee also sought to make its position clear to the Naga people that the present negotiation with the GoI is not confined to the state of Nagaland. It asserted that the political negotiation and settlement is meaningless if Nagas and their ancestral territory in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam are left in its present form in all aspects.
The Working Committee pointed out that the NNPGs Naga delegation have conveyed to the GoI interlocutor R.N Ravi in crystal clear terms that political agreement will not sustain until and unless Nagas in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam are made absolute masters over their ancestral lands and resources, natural or manmade, conforming to history and political right.
Stating that the WC-NNPGs do not believe in isolating and ignoring Nagas outside Nagaland state, the press statement revealed that the Nagas in Myanmar and their ancestral land too has been deliberated at the negotiating table.
“Working Committee believes that Nagas across artificial boundaries must entrench our rights and attain historical, political, cultural, economic and social progress on equal footing through the Agreement. The process of correcting historical errors committed by colonial powers, GOI and Burmese government shall, thus, be set into motion,” it stated.
