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There is a group of people, mostly retired politicians and bureaucrats from Eastern Naga People's Organisation (ENPO) area who have secretly drafted a proposal, collaborating with Indian agents, and submitted to the Government of India (GoI). Among many, two points will invite serious repercussion.
1. The present National Workers from ENPO areas are all misguided and anti-social elements and when ENPO issue is resolved with GoI, all of them will be made to surrender along with arms. The leaders will be provided with one licensed arms each.
2. After ENPO/GoI agreement, all ENPO areas along Myanmar border will be fenced and sealed in order to prevent insurgents, drugs, arms smugglers from indulging in cross border illegal activities.
WC, NNPGs is aware that half of Nagas are living in our ancestral land in Myanmar and under negotiated terms, free entry and exit of Nagas from both India and Mynmar, a huge extension from the current Free Trade Regime (FTR) was negotiated and agreed upon. Can the Konyaks, Khiamniungans, Yimkhiungs, etc. further wall off their blood brothers and sisters living across arbitrarily demarcated boundary in Myanmar?
The two points are antithetical to the Indo- Naga political aspiration. The fickle minded author(s), chasing name, fame and wealth, at the cost of innocent ENPO public, had no second thoughts about committing heinous political crime against the very people they claim to stand for. If the territorial Integration of Naga inhabited area under one political entity, further disintegration of Nagaland into ENPO area is undesirable. It is a ploy to further dismember Naga families. ENPO leaders must therefore desist from any political arrangement that seeks to swallow the Naga political aspiration. ENPO people in particular and Nagas in general must have clarity on this issue before it is too late.
Who are the ENPO leaders playing with fire? Why are they willing to burn their fingers and invite curse upon their offsprings?
It appears there is tacit understanding among former politicians from ENPO area, collaborating with Indian agents, to devalue the negotiated "Agreed Position" between GoI and WC, NNPGs.
The stand of the WC, NNPGs on ENPO demand has always been pragmatic and consistent. WC, NNPGs would welcome all GoI and ENPO initiatives whereby, priority sectors such as infrastructure, health sector, education and human resources development sectors must be developed on a war footing. The region has been much neglected over the decades by the state government and also by the ENPO elected representatives themselves. The state government cannot wash its hands off the aggrieved ENPO. Nagaland state has been divided into three tiers in the development graph, brazenly more so in the last two decades. The allocation and distribution of developmental activities in ENPO area is pathetic and grievous. All Chief ministers in the last quarter of a century have failed to understand that development and economic progress of ENPO people will fuel economic growth and strengthen social fabric of all Nagas.
WC, NNPGs would make it very clear to ENPO leaders at all levels that Indo-Naga issue is a political and historical issue inclusive of Nagas in Nagaland, Naga people and land in Manipur, Naga people and land in Assam, Naga people and land in Arunachal Pradesh and Naga people and land in Myanmar. Whereas, GoI-ENPO talk is primarily to relook, fix and compensate the economic deprivation of six Naga tribes of ENPO by Nagaland state government in the last many decades. The resolution of the Indo-Naga political can adequately address the grievances of the Eastern Naga area and therefore priority must be accorded to inking the Indo-Naga political Agreement. The state government must not use ENPO issue as a pretext to divert attention from the impending Indo-Naga solution. There should be no strings attached as far as Indo-Naga political issue and ENPO demands are concerned. As it is, WC, NNPGs and GoI have concluded the negotiations and therefore ENPO should not address Naga historical and political matters because highly regarded and acknowledged leaders from among ENPO tribes have been integral part of the Naga negotiating team.
Media Cell
WC, NNPGs.