4 Naga bodies urge govt to resolve issue as per 1997, 2015 agreements

Kohima, April 4 (IANS) Four influential Naga organisations, including the powerful Naga Hoho on Tuesday, urged the Central government to honour its word in the Ceasefire Agreement (1997) and Framework Agreement (2015) and "resolve the Naga political impasse accordingly".

The four Naga bodies -- the Naga Hoho, the Naga Mothers' Association, the Naga Students' Federation, and the Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights, in a joint statement said that the government must "stop its militarisation and military operations".

"The Naga political conflict cannot be solved militarily and must be solved politically, as admitted by no less than three Indian Army Generals and others," they said.

"Naga People are an independent indigenous nation in assertion to which a peaceful and prior informed plebiscite was conducted in 1951 that resulted in 99.9 per cent in support of our independent status as declared on the 14th of August 1947."

The Naga bodies said that "the Indian armed forces have been occupying their land ever since its military aggression in 1954".

"Left with no option but to defend our political, social, religious and economic rights, we have resorted to confront and resist the occupational military forces of India and Burma. This war has ever since continued in the midst of two 'ceasefires'.

"We are subjected to live in constant fear and trauma, which is a never ending-nightmare, the statement said.They alleged that their homes and granaries were vandalised and burned.

"The armed forces occupy crop fields, schools, hospitals and make them their camps, churches are desecrated and have been made concentration camps. Our women and daughters are molested and raped. Our wives and daughters are subjected to give birth in public," the statement claimed and said that former Secretary General of United Nations Boutros Boutros Ghali had officially acknowledged these violence, destruction, pain and untold sufferings of the Nagas.

Although a decade shy of two years has nearly passed, yet the political resoluteness and honorable approach and guarantee on the part of the government of India remains a dangerous doubt, it said.

The Naga bodies urged the international community to humanely intervene in the violations of human rights in the Naga areas, and recognise their legitimate political, social, economic and religious rights as enshrined in the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.