Hong Kong, September 13: The leader of a rebel group in India's Northeast challenged the world's biggest democracy to live up to its name and let the people of the troubled State of Manipur choose for themselves if they want independence.

Sanayaima, Chairman of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), said there was no room for peace talks with New Delhi without UN mediation, nor any middle ground short of a plebiscite on the restoration of Manipur's �sovereignty�.

The UNLF was established in 1964 and has been waging an armed struggle since 1990 for independence for nearly two million people in the lush valleys and forested hills of Manipur on India's border with Myanmar.

�Whether we remain with India or whether we become a sovereign, independent Nation : let the people decide,� Sanayaima told Reuters in his first ever interview with foreign media.

�I think if India is the largest democracy in the world then they should accept the challenge�.

The softly spoken underground leader, sporting a goatee and glasses, was speaking on a trip to Hong Kong shrouded in secrecy.

Refusing to say how he left Manipur or where he was going next, he requested this story be issued only after he left the city.

�If necessary, we will continue our struggle for another hundred years because it is the very fundamental right that we are fighting for, the National right that we are fighting for, so we cannot afford to get tired,� he said.

Sanayaima, who turns 58 next week, said he decided to speak out �to reach out to the outside world, so that this Indian occupation is put to an end�.

India's Home Ministry spokesman was not immediately available to comment on Sanayaima's remarks.

India has stationed around 50,000 soldiers in Manipur, but there is widespread popular resentment against the military's powers to arrest and kill suspects.

The rebel leader said his force would be prepared to lay down arms if the Indian Government agreed to a UN-monitored plebiscite in Manipur, withdraw its armed forces and allow UN peacekeepers into the former princely State.

�For us, without the involvement of any third party, particularly the United Nations, the peace process cannot be trustworthy,� said Sanayaima, who only uses one name.

Late last year the Indian army launched a major operation in Manipur, and said it had inflicted heavy losses on both the UNLF and other rebel groups there.

But Sanayaima insisted the UNLF, which he said had around 2,000 armed cadres, was not on the run.

�We are not fighting pitched battles against the invading Indian forces, but that doesn't mean we are running away.

If at all we are running away then they should be able to come to our base headquarters.

So far they haven't done that,� he said.

He said New Delhi had yet to respond to his proposal for a plebiscite, first made in January.

Nor has the UNLF responded to the Indian Government's overtures for talks, he said.

�The Indian Government sent some feelers for talks.

So far we have not responded,� he said.

�The peace talks that the Government of India has had with other groups in the region have not produced any satisfactory resolution of the conflicts�.

Manipur is one of seven States in India's Northeast, home to more than 200 tribes.

The remote area, ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, has been racked by separatist insurgencies since India gained independence from Britain in 1947.Sanayaima said India was likely to try another offensive in the coming dry season, in a conflict which has cost more than 10,000 lives.

�There is no middle point where we can meet with India because we were a sovereign independent country before India annexed Manipur in 1949 and we just want to regain that sovereign independence,� he said.

�After that we can become a good and friendly country with India.

And ...

we have many things to learn from India�.

Manipuris boast of two thousand years of history as an independent Hindu kingdom until the Maharaja agreed, allegedly under duress, to the State's accession to India in 1949.

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