NSCN-K Council Headquarters (somewhere in the jungles of Myanmar), Feb. 3: National Socialist Council of Nagaland supremo S.S. Khaplang has dismissed allegations of being hand-in-glove with Nagaland chief minister S.C. Jamir, claiming that he had never met the Congress politician.
One of the most talked about Naga militant leaders ? who has often been charged by his rivals with having a nexus with Jamir ? Khaplang strove to come clean on the issue during an interview at his council headquarters deep inside the jungles of Kenup Tephak Joku Valley.
?I have never seen nor met Jamir,? was the stoic reply of the NSCN (K) supremo to a specific query. Khaplang, in fact, went on to charge Jamir with being corrupt. ?Jamir has only helped himself and his kith and kin. He has done a very little for the welfare of the Naga people.?
At the same time, he pointed out that corruption in Nagaland could not be checked only by removing Jamir as the menace has been percolating from the Centre.
?India is one of the most corrupt nations in the world. So when the Centre is corrupt, the state leadership is bound to be corrupt. Hence, there is no point in singling out Jamir. Whoever becomes the chief minister, he will be equally corrupt. It is the system and not the man which needs to be changed,? he argued.
He said Jamir had twice wanted to meet him but he had refused.
Apart from corruption, the NSCN (K) chairman also had little regard for Indian democracy. ?India may be the largest democracy in the world. But her democracy is a suppressive democracy. It is not for us,? he claimed, alleging that India often used ?brute force to scuttle democracy? be it in Nagaland, Punjab or Jammu and Kashmir.
Khaplang joined the ?Naga national movement? as an activist of the Naga National Convention in 1963 in the Naga-inhabited areas of Myanmar at the age of 24. Two years later, following a manhunt launched against him by the junta, he went underground with 150 recruits on August 14, 1965. Before going underground, he had floated the Eastern Nagaland Revolutionary Council on April 7, 1965. The council later changed its nomenclature to Eastern Naga National Council after an agreement with the Naga National Council in the early seventies. In 1980, it merged with a faction of the Naga National Council headed by Isak Chisi Swu and Th. Muivah to form the NSCN.
Recollecting the events that led to the split in the NSCN, Khaplang said it was unfortunate and that the Nagas would have achieved an honourable solution to the vexed problem had there been no ?division among the Nagas?.
Khaplang said the charges of his rival that several people were massacred by his cadre during the split was ?baseless and unfounded?. He also claimed that he saved Muivah when ?Shillong accordists? had plotted against him and put him under house arrest along with Swu.
Replying to a question, Khaplang said the Nagas? problem with Myanmar could be taken up only when a democratically-elected government was installed in that country. Moreover, the junta has decided not to hold any political dialogue with any outfit, he said.