Our Correspondent
Kohima | April 24
Naga Peoples' Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) Secretary General Neingulo Krome today welcomed the initiative of the Angami Students’ Union (ASU) bringing together members of the Kohima Sub-Division Students' Conference which took place some 75 years ago. He termed it as a reminder of how Nagas came together in “fraternity and brotherhood with all humility in the past.”
Speaking at the cultural session of the ongoing 29th biennial general conference of ASU at Kisama, he said that “Our Naga country was invaded, has been devastated and under occupation for nearly as long as the Kohima Sub-Division Students' Conference was formed 75 years ago.”
Recalling how the Naga elders resisted and fought occupational forces all their lives and sacrificed everything, he also noted that hundreds and thousands of Nagas were “killed, tortured, maimed for life and women and children raped and murdered while entire villages were burnt to ashes and people had to survive in the jungles like animals for years, while many had to seek shelter in neighboring states and territories to survive.”
All these went unknown, untold and unheard by the rest of the world and even by the Indian people, Krome said.
Over the last few decades, and particularly after the second Ceasefire of 1997, the world is not so ignorant about the situation in Nagaland anymore, he said, adding that they are not ignorant anymore about the excesses committed by the Government of India through its military occupation, against the Naga people.
Krome added, “We have filed legal petitions in the Supreme Court of India, and also in High Courts, challenging the constitutional validity of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, and other draconian laws.”
“The Government of India was even compelled to constitute Inquiry Committee to study and investigate into the excesses committed under the AFSPA,” he said.
Despite the UN agencies and international human rights bodies, including India's own Jeevan Reddy Committee recommending repeal of the Act, the Government of India refused to comply till date, Krome added.
“It is only a matter of time when India will be made answerable to all the excesses committed by its military,” he shared.
On the Indo-Naga political issue, he said that with or without political solution or agreements, Nagas must live free and self-dependent, for which “we must continue to nurture our culture, uphold our customary ways of life, and practice our traditional knowledge with more passion and dedication.”
“…we only need to re-invigorate our social organizations and tribal bodies, strengthen our village councils and its auxiliary bodies,” he opined.
