Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, January 28:
Reacting strongly to the demand for unification of Naga inhabited by the NSCN (IM), the UNLF has today asserted that the stand of the IM group will do nothing except give rise to ethnic tension and plunge the entire North East region into endless ethnic conflict and chaos.
Terming the demand of the NSCN (IM) as an illusion, UNLF in a statement today said that the demand raised by the NSCN (IM) to integrate the Naga inhabited areas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh under one administrative unit has generated strong and legitimate reactions from people of the three States.
Questioning why the IM group has been playing this emotive issue time and again in the course of the peace talk with the GoI, UNLF said that it now obvious that the objective of the collective leadership of the NSCN (IM) is to manufacture some sort of a 'mandate of the people' to strengthen their negotiating power in pressing for 'Naga integration'.
In their inverted vision of the 'uniqueness of Naga history' and 'Naga integration', the NSCN (IM) is forgetting the history of others, which date back to more than 2000 years.
To them this seems to be no history, observed the outfit.
Though made through human actions, history is an objective process, said UNLF and added that going against this objective process will be catastrophic.
The historical process of the multi ethnic territorial boundaries should develop towards a larger unity transcending ethnic territorial boundaries not fragmentation on narrow ethnic lines, said the outfit.
Reacting to 'offer' of Th Muivah to the Meiteis, Hmar, Dimasa and Karbi to live together with the Nagas, the statement said that all should certainly live together but not in ethnic-exclusive club like NSCN (IM)'s �Nagalim� .The fact is that these different communities have been living together for ages despite subversive external religious influences.
Ultimately Naga-exclusive 'Nagalim' of the NSCN (IM) is anti-history and as such anti-Naga as well said UNLF.
The concept of Nagalim is nothing more than an illusion, added the statement.
Accusing the NSCN (IM) for launching the ethnic cleansing process that killed over 700 Kukis in the early 1990s, UNLF said this was a crime against humanity and added that the NSCN (IM) too should be held responsible for the death of Naga people during the ethnic clash.
Seen against this backdrop, the offer of the NSCN (IM) to live together sounds hypocritic, said UNLF and appealed to the Naga people to reason against the futility the narrow ethnic politics played by the NSCN (IM).