06/22/2011: "TRUCE TEST The Telegraph"

TRUCE TEST The Telegraph

An end to the decades-old armed insurgency is the best thing that Assam can hope for. A ceasefire by the United Liberation Front of Asom will be the first big step towards that promise of peace. A ceasefire by the Ulfa need not be seen as a victory for the Indian State in its battle against one of the longest insurgencies in the Northeast. The Ulfa may have realized long ago that its fight for a “sovereign” Assam had been doomed from the beginning. The outfit never had any hope of achieving its impossible mission by waging a war against the Indian State. Most of the Ulfa’s senior leaders, including its chairman, Arabinda Rajkhowa, have come to accept that a democracy can be flexible enough to accommodate ethnic and other aspirations of the people. Talks, however flawed, can settle issues which guns cannot force. Thirty-odd years of the Ulfa’s insurgency not only led to unnecessary killings and destruction of property but also spoiled Assam’s chances of emerging into a modern economy. Several generations of Assamese youths were drawn into the insurgency without quite knowing what exactly they were fighting for. Mr Rajkhowa and his comrades owe it to future generations of the Assamese to lay down their arms once and for all.
However, a ceasefire is not necessarily a guarantee for peace. Both the Ulfa and the governments in New Delhi and Dispur have to be careful to make the ceasefire work. Both sides can draw from the experiences of the truce between the Centre and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim, led by Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah. Despite occasional hitches, the ceasefire has worked in Nagaland primarily because both sides avoided confrontationist positions. Nagaland’s example can also be a guide to action for the peace talks in Assam. After all, the ceasefire is meant to prepare the ground for the talks. Mr Rajkhowa would like his followers in the Ulfa and the ordinary Assamese to believe that the ceasefire is not an abject surrender to New Delhi. There never was any question of New Delhi or Dispur accepting any secessionist demand. In fact, the Ulfa leaders can benefit from the Naga peace talks and move faster on issues that are less controversial. Once the Ulfa declares the ceasefire and lays down arms, no time should be lost in starting the countdown for permanent peace in Assam.
Rebels face CBI grilling on Arunachal killing - Two NSCN-IM militants held in Imphal in connection with MP’s death The Telegraph
Imphal, June 21: The CBI will question two cadres of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), now in Manipur police custody, after their formal arrest in connection with the killing of former Arunachal Pradesh MP Wangcha Rajkumar.
The central agency is investigating the killing of the Arunachal Pradesh MP, allegedly by cadres of the NSCN (I-M), in December 2007.
Assam Rifles personnel apprehended the NSCN (I-M) rebels, self-styled major Raishang Luikham, 40, and self-styled sergeant Ramthing Kashing, 33, along with five sophisticated weapons in Ukhrul district on June 11 and were handed over to the police.
An Ukhrul court remanded the two cadres in police custody till June 27.
Luikham is said to be the Ukhrul town commander of the group.
Assam Rifles sources said the two were arrested during an operation at Ngaimu village of Ukhrul, after they received information of the movement of armed cadres.
They also recovered a large cache of ammunition and Rs 5,070 in cash from them.
The seized weapons include a light machine gun and a self-loading rifle.
The arrest of the two rebels, both residents of Ukhrul district, came ahead of the ongoing talks between the leaders of the group and officials of the Union home ministry in Delhi.
Sources said the CBI applied to the judicial magistrate, first class of Ukhrul district, for the formal arrest of the two cadres.
The Ukhrul court is likely to allow the CBI to arrest the rebels after the police remand is over and after they are produced in court on June 27.
The Assam Rifles brought the two rebels to Imphal and handed them over to the Imphal West police station.
They were later handed over to Ukhrul police station.
Sources said there were plans to hold the Ukhrul court in Imphal at the end of the police remand, as the authorities were apprehending trouble when the two were produced in court.
Sources said the residents of Ukhrul town had protested the arrest of the two cadres, saying the NSCN (I-M) was holding talks with the Centre.
An Assam Rifles source said they would continue to take action against NSCN (I-M) rebels if they continued to move around with weapons.
This is the second time that the CBI held NSCN (I-M) rebels after the arrest of Kapling Laikhun in connection with the same case.
Assam Rifles personnel apprehended Laikhun on November 30 last year along with the two other cadres.
The troops recovered one 9mm pistol, 90 detonators and 2.2kg of explosives in Ukhrul.
Peace : A harder ball game 1997 to 2011 : 14 year itch
- The Sangai Express Editorial
It is an irony but an educative irony, no doubt, and this learning curve has come not from the vicissitudes of the years spent in the jungles, but more from the days spent in sitting across the table and negotiating with the former foe.

It took the NSCN, read the Isak-Muivah faction, more than or nearly 17 years to sign the peace pact and set the ball rolling for the political dialogue with the Government of India to script a storyline that would silence the guns once and for all and direct the days of the bush war to the pages of the history text books, to be documented and preserved for the future Naga generation.

Silencing the guns was but the first step towards the final and logical destination of a bush war that dates back to the time the Indian Nation was born in 1947.

The NSCN came into being in 1980, but the Naga insurgency predates the birth of this organisation and this in effect means that the people of Nagaland had experienced the state of conflict for well nearly fifty years before Isak and Muivah led their men to the negotiating table by inking the peace pact on August 1, 1997.

Since August 1, 1997, there have been more than 70 rounds of talks between the leadership of the IM group and the Government of India and while the Naga people did not demonstrate any signs of desperation in the fifty years, stretching from 1947 to 1997, that preceded the cease fire agreement, they appear to be a restless lot in only 14 years since the cease fire came into force.

This is the irony but an educative one, for the lessons that can be drawn from the two eras, the one that preceded the August 1, 1997 cease fire pact and the one which came after this date, are something which can be learned only from first hand experience and cannot be taught in the classrooms or in the hallowed halls of any places of higher learning.

The patience and responsibility of the leaders of the NSCN (IM) have never been tested as strenuously as now, when the cadres can afford the luxury of having a hot meal on time and a warm bed to retire for the night not to speak of a roof over their heads and herein lies the most visible irony.

No one will know this better than Messrs Isak, Muivah, Atem, Raising and the second rung leaders of the NSCN (IM) and the changing contours of their responsibility and the changing expectations of the public must surely started taking their toll.

It is not for nothing that there is the universally held belief that sustaining a war, particularly a bush war, is an easier ball game than sustaining peace.

The real test of any underground outfit, which sees itself as a group taking up the gun for a political belief, starts the moment they give up their lives in the jungles and come to the negotiating table. Arabinda Rajkhowa and his men have also started experiencing this complex truth, if their gesture towards the public is any indication.

The air of despondency coupled with the negative frame of mind as demonstrated by senior leader of the IM group, VS Atem, before the next round of talks with Delhi have all the bearings of the "14 long years of talks with no concrete answers" beginning to rankle the nerves of the IM leaders.

This is not something unexpected and as long as the rebel leaders were tucked away somewhere in a foreign country or in the jungles, there would have been no pressure from the public to expedite the armed uprising for it would not make any sense.

In other words, the IM leaders had the room to manoeuvre and chart out their course of action while they were still waging the bush war, but once the peace bugle was sounded, the change was dramatic and suddenly Messrs Isak, Muivah, Atem, Raising and the others were no longer unapproachable personalities or some romantic figures who existed only in the stories told by the elders—some rebel leaders who the public never had the chance to sit down and talk to—but their own people, who they could speak to in their own native tongue.

Such a changed equation is bound to have an impact on the rebel leaders, who for decades had remained only names in the minds of their people.

How the expectations of the people coupled with the now familiarity brought about by the changed reality, are handled will ultimately turn out to be the litmus test of the IM leaders, particularly Messrs Muivah and Isak.

Delhi does not have anything to lose as long as the guns remain silent and the longer it takes to thrash out a final solution the better it would be for them. Th Muivah and Isak Swu cannot be unaware of this and Delhi too will understand this much more clearly.

For the people of Nagaland, it is therefore necessary that they step in too and see how a solution can be worked out and the first step would be to acknowledge the fact that the grand idea of a Greater Lim resting on the premise of Naga Nationalism will only slow down the political process of negotiation and pose the biggest hurdle in the way of a "dignified solution."

A solution to the Naga political problem can never be thrashed out by antagonising any of its neighbours and as long as this fact is twisted, misrepresented and camouflaged to make it palatable to the Naga people, the longer it will take for a solution to be worked out. This is something which Kohima definitely does not need.

It would be a fallacy for the IM leadership to believe that since a Greater Lim is a climb down from sovereignty, Delhi will have no problem in toeing their line.

The graveyards in Eastern Nagaland as well as in many other parts of Nagaland will tell many a story and one of the most prominent will be that the graveyards in these areas did not come up for the demand of a Greater Lim but for a sovereign Nagaland. Wasn't this what the plebiscite of 1951 all about ?
UPA ready to go extra mile on Naga issue: NPCC Economic Times
KOHIMA: A joint team of Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) has met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and apprised him about the need to resolve the Naga political conflict within a definite time frame.

A party delegation led by NPCC president S I Jamir and CLP leader Tokheho Yepthomi yesterday told the PM that 14-years of peace negotiation without a conclusion and 10-years of ceasefire agreement without opening talks did not make sense, an NPCC statement received here today said.

The NPCC conveyed that there was a need for "transparency in the political dialogue so as to give opportunity to the stakeholders to react constructively."

Singh was "very receptive" to the suggestions and gave patient hearing to the party delegates, it said.

He told the visiting leaders that "this is a unique opportunity for Nagas to resolve the political problem and the UPA government is ready to go extra mile to resolve the issue."

He also assured the delegates of positive action at the earliest, the statement claimed.

Third party mediation to resolve Assam-Nagaland border: Gogoi
PTI | 07:06 PM,Jun 22,2011
Guwahati, Jun 22 (PTI) Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today said that third party mediation was the best way to resolve the long standing boder dispute between Assam and Nagaland.Gogoi, in a meeting with Supreme Court appointed mediators on Assam-Nagaland border, Sriram Panchu and Niranjan Bhatt, said his Government wanted the settlement of the border row with Nagaland once and for all taking into confidence the people of the state."We have approached the Supreme Court so that the border row is resolved once and for all. The apex court verdict will be binding upon one and all," he said.Gogoi said the steps being initiated to elicit the views and opinions of cross section of people on both sides of the border would go a long way in arriving at a broad consensus on resolving the border dispute.He agreed to the views of the mediators that status quo should be maintained till the border row was settled.Gogoi pointed out that though there may be border dispute, people on both sides of the inter-state border have been living peacefully.The mediators Panchu, a senior advocate of Chennai High Court, and Bhatt a senior advocate Gujarat High Court, said that they had held talks during the last few days with intelligentsia, students' groups, civil societies and political parties in both the states and the outcome was positive.

Nagalim.NL News

06/22/2011: "TRUCE TEST The Telegraph"