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09/12/2005: "Clashes claim two lives in Athibung"

Clashes claim two lives in Athibung TheNahvind times
UNI, Kohima, Sept 11: Two NSCN-IM cadres were killed and two were injured when rival factions of the outfit engaged in a gunbattle at Athibung town in Peren district, about 180 km from here, yesterday.Official sources said about 40 NSCN-IM cadres entered the Athibung town to flush out 50 to 60 NSCN-K cadres in the town.
In the ensuing gunbattle four NSCN-IM cadres were injured. The injured cadres were immedately shifted to Dimapur but two of them succumbed to their injuries on the way.
The situation remained tense in the area as the people of the locality fled away after hearing the gunshots and took shelter in a police post.
Rocket launchers and other heavy weapons were also used in the shoot out.
The district authority deployed Nagaland armed police and indian reserved battalion jawans after the incident to prevent further clashes.
First Naga joins elite Army officer's training academy
DIMAPUR, Sept 11: In yet another milestone for Naga youth aspiring to join the Indian Army as a Commissioned Officer, Tongong Konyak has qualified...

for entry into the elite Officer's Training Academy (OTA).

His one-year intensive academic and military training for the one-year programme leading to his commissioning into the army as a Lieutenant is to begin soon.

Tongong Konyak's achievement is likely to go down well in his native place, Mon, which is officially acknowledged as one of the most underdeveloped region in the state.

Army officials have said that Tongong's achievement was rare and deserved praise from all quarters because he was the first Konyak youth to have made it to the selection grade of the OTA.

It may be mentioned that Tongong's feat comes in the wake of another inspiring achievement from a lady from Nagaland who became the first Naga lady officer in the Army after passing out from the OTA this year. (ANI)
GPRN clarifies on Tikhir Tribe and dialect
Morung Express News
September 11
DIMAPUR: The GPRN clarifying on the press release issued by K Yimtsu Yimchumger, Regional President,Yimchunger Region NNC/FGN, has stated that the particular tribe of Yimchunger comprises of six home dialects namely Langa (Yimchunger), Tikhir, Makury, Chirr, Phelongre (Sangtam) and Longphuri and that the NSCN (IM) never ignored the works of the British nor advocated separation of tribes from one to another.
A rejoinder issued by K Joseph Tikhir executive Officer TACA/GPRN, clarified that the Tikhir tribe was a tribe and not a home dialect and the tribe as well as the dialect of Tikhir existed from time immemorial "long before NNC and FGN nomenclature was propounded."
It also maintained that the Tikhir people joined the Naga national struggle during the early 1950s under the banner of the then Naga National council led by Lt. SK Kiusumong Tikhir. It stated that in 1964 fifteen Tikhir personnel had gone to "Pakistan Trained Act" and then in 1967 forty seven Tikhir personnel had gone to "China Trained Act". With regard to these above factors the release cautioned that "self vested and preconceived statement should not be brought in the society as every Naga knows their own historical identity."
Nigerian 'rebel leader' arrested in northeast India
Guwahati, Sept 12, IRNA India-Nigeria-Drugs Islamic republic news agency
Three Nigerian nationals, including a self-proclaimed rebel leader, were arrested by Indian police in the northeastern state of Nagaland on charges of possessing drugs and traveling with forged passports, officials said on Monday.
One of the arrested Nigerians was holding a forged Gambian passport and the two others did not have any valid travel documents, Diampur district police chief Bidur Shekhar told IRNA by telephone.
"One of the arrested persons claimed he was a Nigerian separatist leader belonging to the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB)," Shekhar said.
MASSOB is a rebel group fighting for an independent homeland in Nigeria.
"We are interrogating them to find out if they have any links with rebel groups in the northeast," the police chief said.
The northeast is a cauldron of separatist insurgencies with some 30-odd rebel armies fighting for demands ranging from secession to more autonomy.
The three Nigerians arrived in Dimapur Friday and were on way to state capital Kohima to meet a local Naga tribal man.
It seems that they were part of a big money laundering racket with bank accounts and transaction details in countries like the United Kingdom, Russia, and Belarus, the police official said.
Meanwhile, police in Assam state were interrogating five Afghan nationals arrested last week from the main city of Guwahati.
"The arrested Afghan nationals did not have any valid travel documents and they were believed to be involved in some seedy deals in the state like making forged driving license and passports," an Assam police official said.
HUMAN UNITY-I Limits To Legitimacy Of Right To Cultural Self-Determination
Human unity is no longer an idea preached by a few great souls. It provides a theme which is, under various titles, widely discussed in seminars and lectures. The RK Mission Institute of Culture recently decided to introduce an elaborate course on that theme spread over a number of months. This surely is something special. It may well leave us wondering. Why should the common man, who is mainly interested in matters concerning his family and intimate friends, be expected to seriously pay attention to the subject of human unity? Has something happened in recent times to warrant such an expectation? In fact, a strong justification for attention to this subject can be derived from at least two developments in contemporary history, both of which have the same message.

Remedies
This common message relates to the future of mankind. Looming large before us is the threat of a global disaster from man-made causes. As the causes are man-made, humanity has a special responsibility to devise remedies. Hence the need for a broadly coordinated programme of action and a sympathetic movement of thought all over the globe.
Sixty years have passed since those terrible days marked by the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear weapons of mass destruction. There had been innumerable wars and local military operations earlier, but none as portentous as what was allowed to happen in August 1945. Hiroshima signalled the opening of a new chapter in history carrying with it a clear warning about the possibility of a future war which might truly mark the end of human history. Less spectacularly and yet very definitely a second road to disaster has been disclosed, particularly since the 1970s, by scientific studies conducted in areas related to ecology and the environmental sciences. If the human race does not perish through war, the earth may still cease to be hospitable to human life through the joint effects of global warming and environmental pollution unless fundamental changes are made in the foundations of our industrial civilisation.
These global perceptions have opened up new perspectives of thought, unknown or unclear to social scientists of an older epoch. Theories centred on conflicts between nations and classes, which dominated earlier thought, have not lost their relevance now. But they have to be strongly supplemented by other ideas which stress human unity based on a recognition of the reality of a common peril to the future of mankind as a whole. It will be a gross error to ignore local needs. Yet human unity emerged today as a historical necessity. To strive and achieve a practical reconciliation between local needs and the global objective is the proper task for our time.

Obstacles
Is this an impossible goal? Sometimes it so happens that we set before ourselves an objective and then discover that we do not have at our disposal the necessary instruments for its realisation. Are we in such a situation in the present case? It does not appear to be so. The last half a century has witnessed a very remarkable scientific and technological revolution, which has brought different parts of the world closer to one another as never before. If human unity is the goal, the material instruments for achieving it appear to be ready at hand. What then is lacking? What are the obstacles to achieving the goal we have indicated above?
To raise that question is to ask for an inquiry into the causes of global conflict. While the human identity of an individual can be considered his ultimate identity, for practical purposes he is identified by his affiliation with some narrower group or groups. Problems arise from a lack of adjustment between his wider and narrower identities. In that sense, conflicts in human society can be viewed as manifestations of a kind of crisis of identity.
In the first place, one has to admit the inevitability of the group affiliation of the individual. The human child, unless abandoned at the moment of its birth, grows up as member of a group, normally a family. it also comes to belong quite naturally to a particular linguistic group and quite often, though not always, a community defined by some kind of a religion. Thus individuals with few exceptions grow up as members of a fragmented humanity.
Secondly, individuals do not simply accept their affiliation with parent groups as a matter of unavoidable necessity, but this affiliation tends to acquire a deep sentimental character. This results from a variety of causes. The individual derives from his group affiliation a sense of security which he is apt to lack when he is left alone. Moreover, the group has its own culture and every individual normally gets used to expressing himself through it. This has a further consequence. Just as the individual has his own ego, so too the group develops a collective ego.
Not all communities and nations are equal in size and power. Some occupy a dominant position and others are less strong. It is common enough to find weaker communities fighting to affirm their right to cultural and political self-determination while those that are strong and “power-hungry” are bent on extending their dominion. From this emerges two contrasted ideas of unity. One of these is represented by the imperial model of an ordered world held together by a self-appointed guardian, a superpower. The other stands for the idea of a pluralistic union of diverse faiths and cultures.

Contrast
All of us are familiar with the motto, unity in diversity. In India, most of us accept that oft-quoted saying as beautiful and wise without question. However, such unquestioning acceptance does not take us very far. The contrast between the hegemonistic and the pluralistic views of social unity requires us to look at the matter more closely. We have to try and understand the limitations of each of these two views.
How far and in what ways is it legitimate and wise to concede the demands of diversity? Experience suggests that there are limits to the legitimacy of the right to cultural self-determination. Extremist wings of secessionist movements in Kashmir, Nagaland and Sri Lanka demand the right to establish independent states in areas where they have some influence. Are these demands always right and commendable? To what extent are they really acceptable? To divide this partitioned subcontinent further may arguably multiply its problems. An increase in their number will add to the burden of unproductive military and administrative expenditure in an already impoverished region besides creating a host of new bases for ambitious foreign powers.
(To be concluded)

By AMLAN DATTA