04/01/2012: "For the ‘Other’ Nagas - Rugotsono Iralu"

For the ‘Other’ Nagas - Rugotsono Iralu
I thought I wanted to talk about ‘Tribalism’ in this column but when I looked at it closely I found the topic very narrow and it felt somewhat like I was only looking from a drain-pipe view while the bigger picture lay all strewn in front of me.
So for those ignorant and short-sighted among us, I’d like to see what I can do about that.
What are an ethnic-Indigenous people? When I break up these two words, ‘Ethnic’ means of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic or cultural origin or background. The word ‘Indigenous’ means as originating or occurring naturally in a country or region. But ‘Indigenous’ or Indigenous people have also been referred to nations and peoples who have been colonized, marginalized, dispossessed of culture and even having a spiritual dislocation.
Of course, all nations and people of the world can be classified as ‘Indigenous’ or ethnics of that land. However the Nagas have a peculiar history, where you will find Nagas outside the state of Nagaland, even on the other side of the border too. Although the Nagas did not have a written script, they belong to the Sino-Mongoloid race and are believed to have migrated in waves from South-east Asia in the B.C era. Their entry points into the present lands were through the Burmese and Himalayan corridors. Their language is of Tibeto-Burmese origin. Yet, the exploitations of Colonization and foreign nations are such that the fate of nations are decided and divided up by foreign rule in fine examples like Africa and even Asia. Under the treaty of Yandaboo in 1826, the British Imperialists divided the Naga homeland by drawing an international boundary across it and splitting it between India and Burma; all this without the consent of the Nagas. Let me try to enlighten you a little about the people on the other side of the border. They are randomly called the ‘Burmese-Nagas’ or sometimes, Eastern Nagas as well. Although through our oral history we say that Kachins and Karens of the Burmese people are our blood brothers, they are altogether a different people and nation, like the Meiteis who were also considered brothers descended from a common Mongolian ancestor of the Nagas. There are considered to be 22 Naga tribes in Burma. They are:
1. Anal.
2. Cheru.
3. Chirr.
4. Dikhiri.
5. Heimi.
6. Kengu.
7. Khiumnungan.
8. Konyak.
9. Lamkang.
10. Lainung.
11. Makury.
12. Namshik.
13. Pakang.
14. Pangmi.
15. Para.
16. Phellungri.
17. Phom.
18. Rangpan.
19. Saplo.
20. Shangpuri.
21. Tangkhul.
22. Yimchunger.
The Nagas on the other side of the border are perhaps the most suppressed and unheard voices among us. They have very little education or health facilities, a lot of them dying from curable diseases like Malaria, Typhoid, diarrhoea etc. At their health centres, they lack doctors while some do not even have nurses, and medical supplies are either very little or not even there. They still consider themselves Nagas and do not take the British colonial line-drawing of random boundaries as a valid one to date; while on the other side of the border, comfortably numb and indifferent are the 16 tribes within the state of Nagaland.
The people who consider themselves ‘Nagas’ on our side of the Indian border are those in regions of Assam from Haflong, Diphu and regions from Tezu, Changlang and Tirap in Arunachal Pradesh. Also included are regions as far as Tamenlong, Chandel, Khampat in Manipur. If all the regions and people are put together Nagaland is roughly five times the size of Israel, a rough estimation of 120,000 sq kilometres lying between the longitude of 92.5° E and 97.5° E and latitudes 23.5° N and 28.5° N. All together ethnic-indigenous Naga people are believed to be 52 tribes with a rough estimation of 4 million population.
Whatever the ‘divide and rule’ policy the British schemed upon us or India’s device for ‘better governance,’ this is the reality we have right now. The state of Nagaland is 16,527 sq. kilometres with a population of 19.81 lakh as per census 2011. We call ourselves tribals, distinguishing ourselves between different tribes and regions, speaking different languages with distinct culture, habits etc. etc. And in between all this we like to dwell on the issue of ‘Tribalism’. Between the Eastern and Western Nagaland, between the Southern and Northern Nagaland. About which tribes are more advanced and which aren’t. Of neglecting one or the other, raising ourselves above the other person, tribe, tongue. While the actual majority of our ethnic-indigenous people lie beyond the borders of our Nagaland state? Perhaps, it is not too petty to see things the way we do. Eastern part of Nagaland wants to demand for a separate state because they have been neglected by their appointed leaders and us who have been privileged so far. While we, on the other hand, like to be defensive and quarrel among ourselves competing on a devious platform of money, greed, acquisition and all-round corruption to meet to those needs which have become a necessity now, has it?
If one tribe can say they can survive by themselves and decide they are their own rulers, government or people I would really like to see them step forward and make that claim. If one insignificant tribe of indigenous people in this state can honestly say they could do better without the help of other tribes and their existence, I would gladly like to see its outcome. It is our fate to be diverse and different but if accepting those diversities are not how we’d like to look at our uniqueness, wouldn’t it just be better if we divide and try to stand on our own tribe-tribe wise, village-village wise, clan-clan wise and individual-individual wise?
If suspicion and animosity coupled with sometimes very ignorant ideas about other tribes is innate in us, then how I wonder, are we ever going to look out into the world from our threshold? Perhaps it would be easier to grant us the label, ‘Forgotten’ and ‘Insignificant’ races of the 21st century.
The Changing Discourse of NSCN (IM)

Namrata Goswami
March 30, 2012
On March 21, 2012, the National Socialist Council of Nagalim led by Isak Chisi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah—NSCN (IM)—celebrated its 33rd “Republic Day” in Camp Hebron, the armed group’s headquarters in Nagaland. Situated at a distance of 35 kms from Dimapur, the main town in Nagaland, Camp Hebron is well connected with a metal road in the midst of a picturesque landscape. During the celebrations, Isak Chisi Swu, the Chairman of the NSCN (IM), gave a speech which is notable for several reasons with regard to the Naga peace process underway since 1997.

Camp Hebron, NSCN (IM) headquarters, photo by Namrata Goswami
First, Swu stated that both the NSCN (IM) and the Union government are determined to work out an acceptable resolution to the Naga conflict. This is perhaps the first time that one of the main leaders of the NSCN (IM) has acknowledged the sincerity of the Union government to resolve the issue. On earlier occasions, both Muivah and Swu had blamed the Union government for engaging in delaying tactics which reflected a lack of sincerity to resolve the conflict in a meaningful manner.
Second, Swu acknowledged that the Naga peace process is being addressed at the highest political level in India, the Prime Ministerial level, thereby indicating the importance given to the aspirations of the Nagas by the Union government.
Finally, and most significantly, Swu hoped that a time will come in the future when the NSCN (IM) will no longer view India as an adversary but rather as a collaborator for peace. He went on to state that “I believe the day is not far off”.
These are significant comments from Swu, signalling a distinctive change of discourse by the armed leader. Since the NSCN (IM) works within the framework of a highly centralised political structure known as the Government of the Peoples’ Republic of Nagaland (GPRN), such views enjoy the support of the “collective leadership” as the NSCN (IM) leaders call themselves. The GPRN has a President, Vice President, Prime Minister, Kilonsers (Ministers) and ministries. Each Naga tribe (32 in all) has to elect a Kilonser to the GPRN. The military wing of the GPRN consists of the People’s Army of Nagaland with the Chairman (Isak Swu) as the Supreme Commander, followed by the Defence Minister and the Chief of Army Staff.
A definite resolution of the Naga conflict has significant benefits for the Government of India given the NSCN (IM)’s capability to cultivate other smaller ethnic armed groups in Northeast India to take up arms against the Indian state. Six benefits would accrue if a resolution of the issue were to be effected.
First, it will bring to an end the longest ethnic conflict in Northeast India and which had turned violent in 1956.
Second, it will indicate an acceptance of the Indian Union by the Nagas, an ethnic group that had viewed India’s plural ethos with a great deal of scepticism.
Third, the Union government can enlist the cooperation of the NSCN (IM) towards decreasing the highly insecure status of Manipur today. Amongst the multiple armed groups operating in Manipur, the NSCN (IM) is one of the most powerful especially in the hills areas of Manipur.
Fourth, it will release the energies of the Nagaland state and the Union government to tackle vital issues in Nagaland like poverty and provision of basic amenities to the common people.
Fifth, it will attract the much needed business investments in Nagaland and enable an opening up to Southeast Asia.
Finally, it will open up the state for tourism, a potential source of revenue which has been thwarted till now due to armed violence.
For the reasons stated above, the recent change of discourse from a prominent leader of the NSCN (IM) needs to be duly recognised by policy makers and academia working on armed ethnic conflicts in India. It offers insights into the NSCN (IM) leadership’s willingness to bring about a final resolution to the conflict. What the final resolution document should look like is not hard to conceive. For one, it should include a commitment by the Union government to respect and preserve the unique history and culture of the Nagas. For another, it should include an assurance that the Nagas living in other states of the Northeast are not discriminated against by the dominant ethnic community in these states. It should also aim at rehabilitating the NSCN (IM) cadres and the inclusion of the armed leaders in the power sharing mechanisms of the state of Nagaland. Finally, it should involve a commitment on the part of the NSCN (IM) to accept the Union of India as a viable framework for enjoying democratic rights and bringing about the empowerment of the people.
Burmese refugees not rushing home yet
By Simon Collins
5:30 AM Saturday Mar 31, 2012
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The Tham Hin camp houses 7000 residents, who share the bare essentials. Photo / Simon Collins
For the first time in 20 years, refugees from Burma are starting to think they may soon have a realistic chance of returning home.
In primitive camps strung along Burma's border with Thailand, and probably also in two camps in Bangladesh, refugees like Tun Win, a committee member of the Tham Hin camp west of Bangkok, are saying: "We want to go home."
"The NGOs [non-government organisations] and the Thai authorities come and visit our camp. They say there will be no forced repatriation but we have to prepare ourselves because the situation is getting better," he said.
And in a dozen Western countries that have accepted 74,000 refugees from Burma for resettlement since 2005, people like Auckland Transport maintenance worker Soe Thein are watching cautiously.
"It's not realistic to go back soon, but I'm planning to think about it and see how the development of the election occurs," Soe Thein said.
"I will decide after that."
Burma, also known as Myanmar, has been under military rule since 1962.
Only one free election has been held since then, in 1990, when the military refused to recognise wins by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in 392 of the 492 seats.
Tomorrow, after spending most of the past 22 years under house arrest, Suu Kyi is finally expected to be allowed to enter Parliament through byelections for 48 seats made vacant by the appointment of ministers.
Over the past few months the regime has also released more than 650 political prisoners, legalised trade unions, relaxed media censorship and reached preliminary ceasefire agreements with most of the ethnic armies that have resisted its rule for decades.
"There are still so many questions," Soe Thein said.
The military still controls the vast majority of seats in Parliament, partly because the National League for Democracy boycotted the last election in 2010 when Suu Kyi and other leaders were still detained.
"Yes, it is a step," he said. "They have opened a small hole, given a small space."
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees describes the plight of refugees from Burma as "one of the most protracted in the world".
Many of what it estimates as 163,700 refugees in Thailand, and 229,000 in Bangladesh, have been in camps for more than 20 years.
Children born in the camps have known no other life.
The Thailand-Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), which feeds 137,000 people in nine border camps, says 73,775 people have been resettled in Western countries since 2005, when Thailand stopped insisting on eventual return to Burma.
New Zealand has accepted 1928 refugees from Burma since 2000, including some who came via Malaysia, making Burma our biggest source of refugees in the past 12 years.
But new refugees have kept flowing into the camps.
Dae Nah, who turns 40 this year, arrived in Tham Hin with her three children and another relative three years ago after her husband was killed by the Burmese military when he was unable to tell them the whereabouts of ethnic Karen rebels.
Like the camp's 7000 other residents, her family sleeps on the floor in a one-room bamboo hut jammed next to hundreds of other huts.
Everyone shares a few outdoor water tanks and lines of toilets, constantly risking disease.
There is no electricity and everyone cooks on open fires. More than 500 huts in the Umpiem camp north of Tham Hin burned down last month in a fire sparked by cooking.
TBBC, funded by Western donors including Catholic aid agency Caritas and, up to 2010, NZ Aid, provides rationed food, cooking fuel and other essentials.
In Tham Hin a pilot scheme trains refugees in skills such as animal husbandry and candle-making. "They will need skills when they go back because they are going to rebuild their new life," Tun Win said.
Other ethnic Karen refugees living outside the camps in Thailand have heard that the military regime may let them go back to land they fled from in their home villages in Burma. A few are starting to go back to have a look.
Burmese President Thein Sein said last August: "Myanmar citizens, living abroad for some reasons, can return home if they have not committed any crime."
But in Auckland, Soe Thein said refugees who had applied for visas from the nearest Burmese embassy in Canberra were being asked lots of questions and few were actually getting visas. Many may never be able to return to their villages because the military has destroyed them to cement its control over the rebel ethnic areas. TBBC says 3700 villages have been destroyed since 1996, displacing more than one million people.
The Karen National Union (KNU) has said that, in ceasefire talks due to resume next week, it will give priority to helping displaced people still inside Burma return to their homes. Refugees outside the country will be a second priority because they are being fed.
But Daniel Zu, a Tham Hin camp founder and now a leader of the Karen community in Australia, has just returned to Sydney from a worldwide conference of Karen leaders near the Thai border and warns against expecting anyone to go home soon.
"Repatriation will not be in the near future. It will take three to five years," he said.
"Even this peace talk is likely to be difficult, with the ceasefire very fragile at this point. There have already been clashes breaking out again in Shan State against their signed agreement, and with the KNU also skirmishes can break out."
Zu's analysis is that the political changes in Burma so far are "more cosmetic than real" because the regime is still in ultimate control. The military rulers have strong economic and political motives to loosen controls somewhat.
Sanctions imposed by the US and the EU, backed by other countries such as New Zealand, have restricted trade and investment and shut Burma out of the international banking system.
"I believe that they would like to get rid of the Western sanctions in particular, so they are making these cosmetic changes to get the sanctions lifted," Zu said.
The regime also has development projects such as hydro-electric dams, natural gas pipelines to China and a US$8 billion ($10 billion) plan for a new port and industrial estate at Dawei in southeast Burma, linked by a planned highway through Karen territory to Thailand, which all depend on settling the long-running ethnic conflicts.
Politically, the regime is seen as keen to re-establish links with the West as a counter-balance to economic dependence on China. It also wants to host the Southeast Asian Games next year and take its turn to chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in 2014. Western leaders have responded enthusiastically.
The US resumed full diplomatic relations after 22 years in January. EU development commissioner Andris Piebalgs unveiled an aid package of almost US$200 million last month and said that if tomorrow's byelections were free and fair "then everyone would expect the easing of sanctions to continue".
Foreign Minister Murray McCully also visited the new military capital of Naypyidaw this month and said he was "pleased to explore how New Zealand can support the continuation of [the reform] process".
Zu believes Western countries will move gradually, rather than removing all sanctions suddenly.
"They are not stupid, I believe. They are using carrots as well as sticks," he said.
"I would say the outlook is 50/50. The Karen community are very cautious, very watchful, alert."
In Auckland, Burmese refugees will raise the flag of the National League for Democracy over a food stall at an International Cultural Festival which runs from 10am to 5pm tomorrow in the Mt Roskill War Memorial Park near the end of Sandringham Rd.
"We will raise the NLD flag because that day is the election day, and we are selling Aung San Suu Kyi badges and T-shirts," said Soe Thein.
Proceeds will go to an educational institute set up by former political prisoners in Burma.
Simon Collins visited Tham Hin camp with his wife, who is Dae Nah's sister.
Carnival-like atmosphere in Myanmar ahead of election By Ian Williams, NBC News correspondent
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is poised to win a seat in parliament and join a government that's embracing reform, but still dominated by the military. NBC's Ian Williams reports. YANGON, Myanmar – It was like carnival time in Mingalar Taung Nyung Township on Friday. A cavalcade of packed cars, mini-buses and trucks cruised the streets of this rundown Yangon suburb, music blaring, while the euphoric passengers sang, waved and danced. "Aung San Suu Kyi!" they shouted, while bystanders cheered them on.
A group of monks raised their fists and shouted back: "Aung San Suu Kyi!" Myanmar is preparing to go to the polls Sunday in only its third election in 50 years. Suu Kyi, the country’s pro-democracy leader, is running for one of 45 parliamentary seats.
Images of Suu Kyi were everywhere – on t-shirts, posters, flags and red bandanas, together with a fighting peacock, the symbol of her party, the National League for Democracy. Just one year ago, openly displaying these images could have quickly landed you in jail.
‘Will she win?’ I asked one man, who clearly thought it was one of the silliest questions he’d heard in some time. "100 percent certain," he said, his voice hoarse from all the shouting. "100 percent certain."
High stakes
Suu Kyi herself is being far more cautious about Sunday's vote, accusing her opponents of widespread intimidation.

Ian Williams / NBC News
A jeep decked out with special speakers to blare music helped whip up pre-election excitement in a suburb of Yangon, Myanmar on Friday.
"We hope the courage and resolution of the people will overcome the intimidation and irregularities that have been taking place," she said at a press conference early Friday.
She's not been out campaigning since she took ill earlier this week from fatigue and exhaustion. The 66-year-old looked stronger Friday and joked about her health: "I'm feeling a little delicate, so any tough questions and I'll faint straight away," she joked.
By most accounts the enthusiasm on the streets of Mingalar Taung Nyung has been repeated across the country, even though only 45 seats are being contested. That's only a fraction of the 659 seats in what will still be a military-dominated parliament, even if Suu Kyi’s party grabs all the seats it's contesting Sunday. All the same, the stakes have never been higher. A clean election will mark another step towards the lifting of sanctions against Myanmar. And the mere fact Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, have returned to politics is seen in itself as a huge step forward - though only a first step.
Tough job for election observers
Myanmar has invited more than 150 international election observers to monitor the election, although one observer I met Friday said it was like nothing he'd ever seen before.
Young people participate in pre-eletion rallies in Mingalar Taung Nyung Township, a suburb of Yangon, Myanmar on Friday. They are wearing the colors of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party.
There has been no access to Myanmar's election commission or to electoral lists, and it’s not clear whether access will be grated to polling stations or vote counting. That makes their job very difficult. "There could be massive fraud or no fraud – I’m not sure we'll be able to judge the difference," one observer said to me.
Devoid of their usual tools, their judgments will be impressionistic at best, though as one said to me: "The mere fact this is happening at all in Myanmar is a huge step."
Suu Kyi seems to share that view. Her accusations of irregularities are aimed primarily at local opponents, for whom old habits die hard. She's said many times that she does not doubt the sincerity of Myanmar's President Thein Sein, the former general who started the reform process last year with an easing of censorship and the release of political prisoners. Many analysts believe it would rather suit hem to have Suu Kyi in parliament.
A bus decorated in the color's of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party rides through the streets of Mingalar Taung Nyung Township, a suburb of Yangon, Myanmar on Friday.
For her, there is a much bigger dynamic at work than the raw election numbers.
Genie out of the bottle
"It's the rising political awareness of our people that we regard as our greatest triumph," Suu Kyi said Friday.

Hardliners are certainly capable of pushing back such as in 1990 when the election victory by the National League for Democracy was simply overturned by the military.
However, this feels different. It was hard not to get caught up in all the emotion on the street today.
It seems like the start of something more enduring, a process that the military will likely find hard to turn off or turn around, even if they wanted to.
Myanmar polls won’t be free and fair: Suu Kyi (Agencies)
Yangon, Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi said on Friday that Myanmar’s weekend elections will be neither free nor fair because of widespread irregularities, but vowed to press forward with her candidacy for the sake of the country.

Suu Kyi said opposition candidates had been targeted in stone-throwing incidents and other intimidation that hampered their campaigning in the run-up to Sunday by-elections that are considered a crucial test of Myanmar’s commitment to democratic reforms.

The 66-year-old Nobel peace laureate told a news conference that the irregularities go “beyond what is acceptable for democratic elections”. “I don’t think we can consider it genuinely free and fair if we consider what has been going on for the last couple months,” Suu Kyi said. “We’ve had to face many irregularities.”

She said there were attempts to injure candidates and cited two cases in which stones or other objects were thrown at members of her opposition National League for Democracy, causing one of the party’s security guards to be hospitalised.

There were “many, many cases of intimidation” and vandalism of party campaign posters.
She blamed some of the acts on “people in official positions”.

Despite the irregularities, Suu Kyi said that the party is “determined to go forward because we think that is what our people want”.
The by-election is likely to mark a symbolic turning point by bringing Suu Kyi into Parliament for the first time, an event that would raise hopes for a more representative government after a half century of repressive military rule.

The by-election will fill 45 vacant seats in Myanmar’s 664-seat national Parliament. A victory by Suu Kyi and the opposition would do little to alter the balance of power in Parliament but would give her a voice in government for the first time.
Party says Myanmar's Suu Kyi wins parliament seat Eastern Mirror
YANGON, APR 1 (AP): Supporters of Myanmar's opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi erupted in euphoric cheers Sunday after her party said she won a parliamentary
seat in a landmark election, setting the stage for her to take public office for the first time.
The victory, if confirmed, would mark a major milestone in the Southeast Asian nation, where the military has ruled almost exclusively for a half-century and where a new reform-minded government is seeking legitimacy and a lifting of Western sanctions.
It would also mark the biggest prize of Suu Kyi's political career and a spectacular reversal of fortune for the 66-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate who the former junta had kept imprisoned in her lakeside home for the better part of two decades.
The victory claim was displayed on a digital signboard outside the opposition National League for Democracy's headquarters in Myanmar's main city, Yangon, where supporters gathered by the thousands as the polls closed in the late afternoon. They began wildly shouting upon learning the news, chanting "We won! We won!" while clapping, dancing, waving red party flags and gesturing with thumbs-up and V-for-victory signs.
As more counts came in from the NLD's poll watchers around the country, the crowd grew to as many as 10,000. The party's security guards tried without success to keep the traffic flowing past the people occupying much of the road and all nearby sidewalks.By 9 pm, the NLD was claiming victory in 13 constituencies, including two in the capital, Naypyitaw. It claimed substantial leads in about 10 more. No official tallies had been released.
Results in Naypyitaw had been hard to predict, because many of its residents are civil servants and their families dependent on the government for their livelihoods, and the turnout when Suu Kyi campaigned there was noticeably smaller than elsewhere. But the party appeared to be running up large leads over its rival, the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party.
The digital screen displaying results also flashed a message from Suu Kyi to her followers noting that they were understandably happy but should avoid gloating. She cautioned them to "Please refrain from rude behaviour or actions that would make the other side unhappy."
Results were expected to come in slowly from more rural and remote areas. All results must be confirmed by the official electoral commission, however, which may not make an official declaration for days.
The victory claim came despite allegations by her National League for Democracy party that "rampant irregularities" had taken place on voting day. Party spokesman Nyan Win said that by midday alone the party had filed more than 50 complaints to the Election Commission.
He said most alleged violations concerned waxed ballot papers that made it difficult to mark votes. There were also ballot cards that lacked the Election Commission's seal, which would render them invalid.
Sunday's by-election was called to fill just 45 vacant seats in Myanmar's 664-seat national Parliament and will not change the balance of power in a new government that is nominally civilian but still heavily controlled by retired generals. Suu Kyi and other opposition candidates would have almost no say even if they win all the seats they are contesting.
But her candidacy has resurrected hope among Myanmar's downtrodden masses, who have grown up for generations under strict military rule. If Suu Kyi takes office as expected, it would symbolise a giant leap toward national reconciliation.
"She may not be able to do anything at this stage," said one voter, Go Khehtay, who cast his ballot for Suu Kyi at Wah Thin Kha, one of the dirt-poor villages in the rural constituency south of Yangon that she is vying to represent. "But one day, I believe she'll be able to bring real change."
A new reform was expected Monday when Myanmar's currency will be largely unshackled from government controls that kept the kyat at an artificially high rate for decades. The International Monetary Fund says the change could lift a major constraint on growth in one of Asia's least developed countries.

Nagalim.NL News

04/01/2012: "For the ‘Other’ Nagas - Rugotsono Iralu"