Kolasib (Mizoram), Feb. 1: Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla today expressed hope that ethnic Mizos living in different states in the country and in contiguous parts of Myanmar and Bangladesh would one day “reunite under a single administrative unit”.
Lal Thanhawla said that cultural and emotional integration of all ‘Zo’ ethnic groups would help in the “reunification process”.
He was addressing a function to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Chin-Lushai Conference on the Mizoram-Assam border in Kolasib town.
Former chief minister and Mizo National Front chief Zoramthanga urged the ‘Zo’ people to accept each other.
The function, conducted by the Zo Reunification Organisation (ZoRO), an organisation spearheading the reunification of the Zos living in India, Myanmar and Bangladesh, was to commemorate the Chin-Lushai Conference held at Fort William in Kolkata on January 29, 1892.
The leaders of the organisation said the conference, held 125 years ago, was the first and only effort made by the British to unify the ethnic Mizos into a single administrative unit.
“The conference was held after British India realised that the ethnic groups living in Chittagong Hill Tracts, Chin hills and Assam were one ethnic group,” President of the ZoRO general headquarters R Sangkawia said.
Sangkawia said that the British gave freedom to India, Bangladesh (East Pakistan) and Burma without reuniting the ‘Zo’ ethnic groups and left them in the three countries against their will.
