Scrapping FMR a crime against humanity, says Naga Club

DIMAPUR — The Naga Club has appealed to the President of India and the Secretary General of the United Nations to intervene in the decision of the Indian government to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) and build fence along the Indo-Myanmar border.

In a letter dated March 13, the Naga Club termed the scrapping of the FMR “a crime against humanity in general and the Nagas in particular.” The FMR, initiated in the 1970s, allows people living near the international border to travel up to 16 kilometres without a visa.

Providing a historical context of the Indo-Naga case, the letter stated that “India, in connivance with the then Burma, divided the Nagas and their land with an arbitrary line without the consent of the Naga local dwellers” and reminded that the “so-called international boundary line passes through and inside of the house of the Chief of Longwa village in Mon district of Nagaland”.

It highlighted that there are four districts of Nagaland where this arbitrary line passes through and about four hundred villages scattered on either side where they cross the supposed border on a daily basis for farming.

Maintaining that scrapping the FMR will deprive those villagers of their basic needs, he said installing fence is not only an encroachment into the ancestral Nagas’ lands but also a crime against humanity and human survival. Further, it mentioned that this predicament is not inherent to Nagaland alone but also to the tribals of Manipur and Mizoram.

“What makes it even more cruel, inhumane and criminally inclined is that it has decided to end the FMR purportedly at the behest of the sitting Chief Minister of India’s Manipur,” it maintained, adding that to cover up the crimes in Manipur, another crime is being manufactured.

The letter also detailed the Oting incident in December 2021, criticised the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023, and expressed apprehensions about the potential acquisition of tribal lands for economic exploitation under the guise of national security “while also devastating the land for palm oil cultivation”.

Further, it said that India continues to misuse military power for oppression and aggression over the Nagas through AFSPA and alleged that in practice, the draconian law is a licence to kill with impunity, and in a civilised world, there is no room for such barbaric laws to exist.

The letter said that the Nagas will oppose any restriction on the movement of their people in their indigenous ancestral lands, as well as the erection of any physical barrier on arbitrary and imaginary lines devised to divide and separate the ethnic Nagas in their own dwelling places.

“It is for this inhuman act of scrapping the FMR, the Naga Club appeals to your learned authority to prevent such misadventure on the Nagas again,” the letter concluded.

Also read: Good neighbours don’t need fences, says PAPO on scrapping of FMR