Naga rebels declare end of war with India

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Naga rebels declare end of war with India

 

Luke Harding in New Delhi and Yoga Rangatia

Tuesday January 14, 2003

The Guardian

 

There was muted optimism in Delhi last night at the progress of

negotiations designed to end one of the longest-running separatist

insurgencies in Asia.

For more than half a century, the Nagas who live in north-east India

and Burma have been waging their own struggle for an independent

state.

 

Over the weekend, for the first time in 37 years, the Naga rebel

leaders, Isak Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, came to New Delhi to flesh

out a peaceful political resolution.

 

At the end of three days of talks with the government, the Naga

leaders announced on Saturday that they were confident the war was

now over.

 

L K Advani, India's deputy prime minister, said yesterday that the

government would be appointing a negotiator to further the Naga

peace process.

 

Mr Swu and Mr Muivah began talks outside India after they initiated

a ceasefire in August 1997 to end the on-off guerrilla war with

India.

 

The Naga people were forcibly absorbed into India in 1947 when the

British - who had fought their own colonial battles with the Naga

tribes - pulled out. They have been unhappy with their lot ever

since. Fighting with Indian troops broke out in 1954. In the long,

obscure and costly guerrilla war that followed, more than 200,000

Nagas have been killed, rebels say.

 

Emerging from the negotiations with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India's

prime minister, Mr Muivah said: "The war is over_ We praise the

government of India. There is a much better understanding on their

part."

 

There is no doubt that the talks mark a historic turning point in

relations between the Naga leadership and the Indian state. But

several questions remain unanswered - not least whether a greater

Nagaland is now on the cards.

 

There are 3.5 million Nagas, but they do not all live in Nagaland,

the narrow strip of mountain territory next to the border with

Burma. Large numbers of Nagas are settled in the neighbouring states

of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. They also live in eastern

Burma's Kachin and Sagaing districts, where they are a downtrodden

and persecuted minority.

 

It is in Manipur that the fiercest opposition to the idea of a

greater Nagaland has come, with widespread riots and strikes last

week. The state does not want any of its territory lopped off.

 

"There would be more turmoil than peace in the region if Delhi tries

to appease the council by agreeing to a Greater Nagaland," Manipur's

chief minister, Okram Ibobi Singh, warned.

 

A lasting political solution to the Naga problem faces other

obstacles. The dominant separatist Naga faction, the National

Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCM), led by Mr Muivah and Mr Swu,

has clearly given up on armed struggle.

 

But other Naga militant groups remain opposed to a peace deal with

Delhi, and the movement is split.

 

The real test comes in February, when elections in Nagaland are due

to be held. The NSCM has traditionally boycotted the polls, but last

week said for the first time it supported the election.

 

"New Delhi should not think of a solution by merging Naga areas in

Manipur state to the existing state of Nagaland," said RK Anand, of

the Democratic People's Party in Manipur, one of the north-eastern

states.