Naga Hoho (NH) has accused Indian armed forces of indulging in most provocative, wilful, premeditated and systematic operations against NSCM-IM and other Naga armed groups in the Northeast and Myanmar amidst the COVID019 pandemic in utter disregard to ceasefire ground rules being enforced.
In a letter to UN secretary general António Guterres, the body alleged that defying the nationwide lockdown, the Unified Command of Manipur comprising Assam Rifles, Manipur Police and Indian Reserve Battalions was moving in full combat gears to raid camps and hideouts of Naga armies in border villages.
It claimed that women COVID-19 vigilantes had intercepted and stopped many of these combined forces braving cold weather, incessant rain at the risk of their own lives and security as no social distancing could be maintained in such confrontations.
The letter alleged that massive deployment of armed forces, often camping at jhum fields, had denied indigenous Naga people living in border areas the right to livelihood. Innocent Naga villagers were now going through the most harrowing time, it added.
NH urged the UN secretary general to intervene and stop the violation of human rights in Naga areas amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic, recognise Nagas as indigenous people under the United Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People and direct the Government of India to stop its military operations and settle the Naga political issue by honouring the hard-earned Framework Agreement of August 3, 2015 for an honourable and acceptable political solution.
The letter informed the secretary general that the political conflict of indigenous Nagas was one of Asia’s longest running conflicts, alleging that when the Nagas refused to join the Indian Union and boycotted the general elections in 1952, the Government of India had sent its security forces to crush them in 1953.
The hoho stated that then UN secretary general Boutros Boutros Ghali had acknowledged the violence, destruction, pain and suffering of the Nagas by observing that “there is human rights situation in Nagaland”.
The letter recalled that NSCN-IM had entered into a formal ceasefire agreement with the Government of India on August 1, 1997 for political talks as two entities based on the following three conditions – (i) without any conditions; (ii) at the Prime Minister’s Level; and (iii) in a third country. It claimed that this had resulted in some positive outcomes like the Framework Agreement and recognition of the “uniqueness” of Naga history and situation by New Delhi on June 11, 2002 in Amsterdam.
However, the hoho rued that the Government of India unfortunately seemed to be taking the current global extraordinary crisis as the best opportunity to trample on the human rights of the Nagas, cut all supply lines of NSCN-IM and conduct military operations to crush the Nagas’ aspiration for self-determination, so as to finish their inherent political rights through the use of its military might.
It regretted that several peace agreements like the 9-Point Agreement, the 16-Point Agreement and the infamous Shillong Accord of 1975 had not yielded the desired result for peace.