Dimapur, May 4 (MExN): The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) has raised concerns over what it termed as “serious and ongoing human rights violations faced by the Naga people in Northeast India and Northwest Myanmar,” at the recent 24th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), held in New York.
Representing the Naga community, which has been a member of the UNPO since 1993, the organisation delivered an intervention under Agenda Item 4, which focused on the impact of colonisation and armed conflict on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and the imperative for peacebuilding, the UNPO said in a statement.
Among others, the organisation highlighted the continued impunity under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the scrapping of the Freedom of Movement Regime (FMR), and the “growing repression of Naga human rights defenders.”
According to the UNPO, one of the most pressing concerns raised was the continued enforcement of AFSPA, which it maintained has “facilitated systemic violence in areas designated as ‘disturbed,’ forcing local populations to live under constant fear.”
It cited the most recent incident at Oting in December 2021, where 14 Naga civilians were killed in a widely publicised case of “mistaken identity.”
In 2013, the European Parliament declared AFSPA unlawful, and in 2023, the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group reiterated the call for its repeal, it highlighted.
Despite international condemnation of AFSPA, including the declaration by the European Parliament in 2013 as ‘unlawful’ and the reiteration of the call for its repeal by the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group in 2023, AFSPA remains in force, perpetuating “impunity and obstructing the path to a just and lasting peace,” it added.
The UNPO also drew attention to India’s decision to scrap the FMR, noting that its removal has severed vital generational, cultural, and economic ties between Naga communities.
“For the Naga people, the FMR was not a special concession but a recognition of the Naga people’s inherent right to access their ancestral land, which spans both sides of the border,” it asserted.
The UNPO also deemed it a violation of the Naga people’s rights under Article 36 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which protects Indigenous peoples’ ability to maintain connections with their lands and kin across borders.
Meanwhile, the UNPO also highlighted what it termed as the “growing repression of Naga human rights defenders,” underscoring that increasingly, Naga activists are “barred from travelling internationally to advocate for their communities.”
“These constraints on civic space erode the rights of individual defenders and the broader community they defend, and undermine the broader goals of peacebuilding,” it held.
The “silencing of voices” is not unique to the Naga people but part of a broader pattern around the globe where Indigenous voices that seek accountability are often met with repression, and dialogue is replaced by coercion, it maintained.
In the Naga context, this has further diminished the prospects for a durable political resolution, the UNPO stated, adding that genuine peacebuilding must address these underlying structures of inequality and entrenched asymmetries of power.
The UNPO’s intervention is part of its support for the Naga people, including its recent condemnation of the harassment faced by prominent Naga human rights defender Neingulo Krome by Indian authorities, it added.
Accordingly, the UNPO also called on Member States to urge the Indian government to uphold its commitments under UNDRIP and to implement the 2015 Framework Agreement; repeal AFSPA in accordance with Article 30 of the UNDRIP; and reinstate the FMR regime, in line with Article 36 of the UNDRIP.
The UNPO also called on the “international community to stand with the Naga people and to uphold the principles of dignity, self-determination, and justice that the UNDRIP represents.”
