Lamka, May 22: In a bid to clarify what the word 'Nagas' has been referred to in the news item published in the Morung Express dated 5 May, 2007, the Kuki National Organisation (KNO) today presented the background on its reference.

'From 1992 the Tangkhul led NSCN (IM) carried out the infamous Kuki Genocide.

Over 900 Kukis were killed, 350 of their villages uprooted and more than 50,000 souls were rendered refugees from 1992-1997,' a press clarification signed by T Stephen Kuki, under secretary of the KNO said.

"In their course of action, the Tangkhuls, through media manipulation used the erroneous term Naga-Kuki conflict and brain washed and utilised other Nagas".

"They also managed to influence the Old Kukis to act viciously against the New Kuki in Chandel district," the KNO statement claimed.

All these developments have intricate errand to out the Tangkhuls from the Nagas, leading to the unfortunately common usage of 'Nagas', it further maintained.

The implicit meaning of the usage, however, remain clear in the minds of many, asserted the under secretary's statement.

It also reiterated the age old cordial relationship Nagas and Kukis have been sharing through the ages including that of the memorandum submitted to the Simon Commission in 1929 and symbolic act of sharing 'Ju' from the barrel of a flintlock, breaking of an animal skull and pulling apart its intestines by the Angamis and Kukis in Nagaland.

And despite of it, 'it is the NSCN (IM) which is concerned with targeting Kukis militarily and politically to sabotage their movement', the KNO statement argued and proclaimed its stand on the issue in no uncertain term.

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