Insurgency / Nagaland

Dimapur, Jan. 8: The sprawling Kevichusa family home here is a picture of opulence and contentment. But scrape off the veneer and you find sadness in every corner. Very few families have paid a higher price for peace in Nagaland than the Kevichusas. The distinguished political family from the Angami tribe lost two sons, Chalie and Tobu, to bullets just when they were coming into their own as politicians.

Anguish was writ large on the face of the slain siblings’ eldest sister as she recounted the circumstances in which her brothers were killed. Those were the days, she said, when bigotry...

Imphal, January 07: Kuki Inpi Manipur has resolutely stated that there should be no peace talks or agreement between the NSCN (IM) and the Government of India before the Kuki problem is settled amicably. In a memorandum submitted to Prime Minister Vajpayee, KIM president Haokholet Khongsai wondered how the Centre could invite a man who ordered the killing of 900 innocent lives and was responsible for uprooting 350 villages without even being tried in a proper law court of the country. If the killing and destruction was the result of a conflict between Nagas and Kukis as some quarters ‘unjustly...

Guwahati, Jan. 7: When a KLM flight from Amsterdam carrying Isak Chisi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah — the two leaders of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) — touches down at the Indira Gandhi international airport in New Delhi tomorrow, it will be the cynosure of all eyes in Nagaland. The reason for this is the belief that the negotiations will be a “giant leap forward for the talks but a small step towards the Naga cause”.

The meeting between the NSCN (I-M) leaders and the Prime Minister would set the tone for future parleys, but it would be too early to assume that a final...

Kohima/New Delhi, Jan. 7: Beneath a pastel portrait of Angami Zapfu Phizo, the architect of the Naga movement, Kevitsielzo Gu-u sits in silence, recounting the past and pondering the future. To Phizo’s son, a resident of Kohima village near the state capital, the much-hyped visit of the NSCN (I-M) leadership and their proposed talks with the Prime Minister do not “mean much”. His sister Adinno, who lives in London, feels “talks are meaningless without the participation of the Naga National Council (NNC)”. Phizo had founded the NNC in 1946.

Though members of Phizo’s immediate family live far...

Jan. 7: A day after the NSCN (Khaplang) declared that the much-awaited Naga peace talks in Delhi would be an exercise in futility, an organisation representing the Kuki community of Manipur pleaded with the Prime Minister and his deputy not to sign any agreement with the Isak-Muivah group. In identical memoranda to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and government interlocutor K. Padmanabhaiah, the Kuki Inpi, Manipur, charged the NSCN (I-M) with killing over 900 Kukis and displacing members of the community from 350 villages.

Holkholet Khongsai, president of the Kuki Inpi, said the Kukis...

New Delhi, January 7: Even as the leaders of insurgent group NSCN(I-M) arrive on Wednesday for talks with Prime Minister Vajpayee and Deputy PM L.K. Advani, the Government is not pinning hopes on a major breakthrough. The focus, apparently, is on building confidence between the two sides.

‘‘At this stage, the biggest concern of the Government is to conduct peaceful elections in Nagaland. This is the least it wants to ensure through parleys with NSCN(I-M) chairman Isak Chisi Swu and general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah.

Though the talks are, no doubt, a major step towards resolving the...

Imphal, January 06: Around 60 NSCN (I-M) top cadres have left the Dimapur Airport for New Delhi as the two visiting supremos of the outfit have cancelled their much speculated trip to Nagaland, according to highly placed sources. Sources said that the cadres, many of whom have not yet seen the outfit chairman Isak Chisi Swu and general secretary Th Muivah in persons, have left the Nagaland commercial town in three batches for New Delhi to meet and to be introduced to them. Muivah and Swu have restricted their trip only to New Delhi due to 'certain reasons', sources said. Sources further...

Poilwa (Peren), Jan. 6: On a chilly December morning on a mist-covered hilltop of the Poilwa range, armed cadre go about their daily drills with their usual military precision. But despite the razor-sharp glares of the NSCN (I-M) activists at “outsiders”, there is a kind of warmth in their body language. They say it is all due to the “end of the long wait”. At the council and general headquarters of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) here, the visit of their “collective leadership” to Delhi for starting the talks at the political level has raised the hopes of the “Naga...

Kohima/Phek, Jan. 5: A 10-member NSCN (I-M) delegation is headed for New Delhi to assist their leaders, Isak Chisi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, in the next round of negotiations with the Centre. The delegation comprises kilonsers (ministers) and members of the outfit’s steering committee and ceasefire monitoring cell. The team will be led by A.Z . Jami. The convener of the NSCN (I-M)’s ceasefire monitoring cell, Pungthing Shimrang, and its principal secretary, Samson Jajo, are already in New Delhi.

With expectations of a breakthrough rising with each passing day, Nagaland chief minister S.C...

Imphal, Jan. 5: Manipur chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh and some of his ministerial colleagues today visited the hub of Manipur’s Naga community, Senapati district, in a bid to smoothen feathers ruffled by his government’s refusal to withdraw the cases pending against NSCN (I-M) leader Thuingaleng Muivah. The daylong tour would have been interpreted as routine, but for the chief minister’s stand, which has antagonised the Naga community.

Trying his best to convince the Nagas that the government was not prejudiced against them, Ibobi Singh announced a slew of welfare schemes for the community...