NEWSLINKS US EDITION SOUTH ASIA COLUMNISTS DIARY SPECIALS INTERVIEWS CAPITAL BUZZ REDIFF POLL THE STATES ELECTIONS ARCHIVES US ARCHIVES SEARCH REDIFF
Syed Zarir Hussain in Guwahati
An influential Naga group in Nagaland on Sunday warned rebel outfits against fratricidal killings, saying the continuing clashes could jeopardise hopes for an end to the dragging insurgency in the region.
"We are working out a plan for reconciliation to take the Nagas beyond the present unacceptable tragedy of Nagas killing fellow Nagas that can wreck the ongoing peace talks with the central government," M Vero, president of the Naga Hoho, the apex tribal council in Nagaland, said.
"Everybody in the state wants peace and if the killings continue then we might not get the desired results," Vero said by telephone from state capital Kohima.
The Naga Hoho, in a meeting on Saturday night, however, decided to intensify a campaign for unification of all Naga-inhabited areas in the northeast, lending an open support to the National Socialist Council Nagalim's plans.
"The demand for integration and unification of all Naga-inhabited areas in the northeast has become the urgent need of the hour and hence our decision to work towards that end," Vero said.
"We want the government to honour the June 14 agreement and immediately extend the ceasefire across the northeast for a permanent solution to the Naga insurgency problem," he added.
Two factions of the outlawed NSCN, both fighting for independent tribal homelands, are engaged in a violent turf war since their split in 1988 and killed at least 500 cadres in the past five years.
A faction of the NSCN, led by Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, has been observing a ceasefire with the central government since August 1997 although the peace talks have run into trouble over extension of the truce beyond Nagaland.
An agreement on June 14 with New Delhi had extended the territorial limits of the ceasefire with the rebels to cover all Naga-inhabited areas in other adjoining states of the northeast as well.
But a mass upsurge against the June 14 pact in Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh forced New Delhi to again limit its ceasefire with the NSCN to Nagaland.
Indo-Asian News Service
Back to top
Tell us what you think of this report
